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For a typical microstrip antenna placing the radiating elements and feed lines on one side of the substrate realises the advantages of planar fabrication. It can be shown that the currents in many parts of the feeder circuit have magnitudes comparable with those in the radiators and make a significant contribution to the total radiation. In this thesis the radiation from both the radiators and the feed lines will be examined. The radiation from microstrip was calculated from the current distribution. This method allows the calculation of the radiation from the nominal radiators and the feed circuits. Theoretical and experimental results verifying this approach will be given for examples of relatively low Q resonators on thick, low permittivity substrates required for efficient antennas. Unwanted radiation from the feed circuit could be reduced by the use of coaxial lines below ground or a multiple-layer strip line assembly, but such complications are unattractive. Reduction in unwanted feed line radiation has been investigated by the use of a balanced line feeder, combined with a suitable balun.

In today's new and changing world, Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) education has come to the forefront of educational reform. The expectation for better prepared workers for today's technology infused businesses requires a better trained student, not only at the post-secondary level, but also at the secondary level. Today's student has access to technology that could have only been dreamed of 60 years ago. With this need for higher level skills in the STEM field for the work force, it would only be logical to expose students to aspects of engineering in younger grades, particularly at the high school level. The Antenna Design challenge has been designed to expose students to the engineering process and technology that is relevant to their everyday lives. This report will examine how an engineering challenge can be incorporated into the physics classroom, while observing how different levels of scaffolding affect mastery of the material and implementation of the lesson. / text

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a short range radio technology for communication between two objects namely, a reader and a tag. Design of an RFID tag with the best range is always the motive of an RFID designer. In this thesis two RFID tags were simulated, designed and manufactured. The first one is a semi-passive RFID tag, which also serves as a discrete prototype tag for the research group to master RFID tag designs. The user can program and further extend the use of this tag according to the requirements. This RFID tag is provided with JTAG interface to program and debug. The read range of this prototype tag is found to be 1m with reader EIRP of 30dBm. The second design is a passive tag which can be commercialized. It achieves a competitive read range of 2.9m for reader EIRP of 21dBm. The read range when measured in a practical implementation inside a building corridor was 15m.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a short range radio technology for communication between two objects namely, a reader and a tag. Design of an RFID tag with the best range is always the motive of an RFID designer. In this thesis two RFID tags were simulated, designed and manufactured. The first one is a semi-passive RFID tag, which also serves as a discrete prototype tag for the research group to master RFID tag designs. The user can program and further extend the use of this tag according to the requirements. This RFID tag is provided with JTAG interface to program and debug. The read range of this prototype tag is found to be 1m with reader EIRP of 30dBm. The second design is a passive tag which can be commercialized. It achieves a competitive read range of 2.9m for reader EIRP of 21dBm. The read range when measured in a practical implementation inside a building corridor was 15m.

This thesis focuses on mobile phones antenna design with brief description about the historical development, basic parameters and the types of antennas which are used in mobile phones. Mobile phones antenna design section consists of two proposed PIFA antennas. The first design concerns a single band antenna with resonant frequency at GPS frequency (1.575GHz). The first model is designed with main consideration that is to have the lower possible PIFA single band dimensions with reasonable return loss (S11) and the efficiencies. Second design concerns in a wideband PIFA antenna which cover the range from 1800MHz to 2600MHz. This range covers certain important bands: GSM (1800MHz & 1900MHz), UMTS (2100MHz), Bluetooth & Wi-Fi (2.4GHz) and LTE system (2.3GHz, 2.5GHz, and 2.6GHz). The wideband PIFA design is achieved by using slotted ground plane technique. The simulations for both models are performed in COMSOL Multiphysics.  The last two parts of the thesis present the problems of mobile phones antenna. Starting with Specific absorption rate (SAR) problem, efficiency of Mobile phones antenna, and hand-held environment.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a short range radio technology for communication between two objects namely, a reader and a tag. Design of an RFID tag with the best range is always the motive of an RFID designer. In this thesis two RFID tags were simulated, designed and manufactured. The first one is a semi-passive RFID tag, which also serves as a discrete prototype tag for the research group to master RFID tag designs. The user can program and further extend the use of this tag according to the requirements. This RFID tag is provided with JTAG interface to program and debug. The read range of this prototype tag is found to be 1m with reader EIRP of 30dBm. The second design is a passive tag which can be commercialized. It achieves a competitive read range of 2.9m for reader EIRP of 21dBm. The read range when measured in a practical implementation inside a building corridor was 15m.

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In this dissertation, channel modeling for Terahertz (THz) channels and designs of nano devices for THz communications are studied. THz communication becomes more and more important for future wireless communication systems that require an ultra high data rate, which motivates us to propose new nano device designs based on graphene and new system models for the THz channel. Besides, the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technique is well known to increase the spectral efficiency of a wireless communications system. Considering THz channels' particular characteristics, MIMO systems with reconfigurable antennas and distributed antennas are proposed. We compare the differences between MIMO systems in the GHz and THz bands, and highlight the benefits of using multi antennas in the THz band. The work on nano device designs provides two antenna designs with single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and graphene nano ribbon (GNR). First, we analyse the spectral efficiency of an SWCNT bundled dipole antenna based MIMO system in the Terahertz band. Two scenarios are considered: the large scale MIMO and the conventional scale MIMO. It is found that, in order to get the maximum spectral efficiency, the CNT bundle size should be optimized to obtain a tradeoff between the antenna efficiency and the number of antennas for a given area. We also discuss the random fluctuation in the bundle size during the CNT bundled antenna fabrication which reduces the system spectral efficiency. Then, we propose reconfigurable directional antennas for THz communications. The beamwidth and direction can be controlled by the states of each graphene patch in the antenna, and the states can be easily configured by changing the electrostatic bias voltage on each element. The work on reconfigurable MIMO system proposes a new antenna array design for MIMO in the THz band. First, the path loss and reflection models of the THz channel are discussed. Then, we combine the graphene-based antenna and the THz channel model and propose a new MIMO antenna design. The radiation directions of the transmit antennas can be programmed dynamically, leading to different channel state matrices. Finally, the path loss and the channel capacity are numerically calculated and compared with those of the GHz channel. The results show that for short range communications, the proposed MIMO antenna design can enlarge the channel capacity by both increasing the number of antennas and choosing the best channel state matrices. The work on MIMO channels proposes a statistical model for the MIMO channel with rough reflection surfaces in the THz Band. First, our analysis of scattering from a rough surface indicates that the reflection from a single surface can be a cluster of rays. Secondly, a new MIMO model for THz communications is proposed. In this model, the number of multipaths is highly dependent on the roughness of the reflecting surfaces. When the surface is ideally smooth, the MIMO channel is sparse and as a result, the capacity is sub-linear with the MIMO scale. On the other hand, when the surface is rough, more degrees of freedom are provided by the scattered rays. Finally, channel capacities with different surface roughness are numerically calculated and compared between different MIMO scales. The results show that in contrast to the GHz range, large scale THz multiple antennas may not provide as much multiplexing gain. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the antenna scale according to the actual propagation environment. The work on distributed antenna systems (DAS) proposes a new DAS model in the THz band. First, the model of DAS in the THz frequency is discussed, which has fewer multipaths than that in the GHz band. Then, we analyze the characteristics of the DAS model and point out that the channel is very sparse if the number of antennas on the base station (BS) is very large. Besides, we provide reasons for the fact that DAS can have a large number of degrees of freedom. We compare the capacities of MIMO systems with DAS and without DAS. The results show that for THz channels, increasing the number of antenna units (AUs) is much more important than increasing the number of antennas in one AU. Finally, we propose an antenna selection and precoding scheme which has very low complexity. / Graduate

Small antennas have attracted significant attention due to their prolific use in consumer electronics. Such antennas are highly desirable in the healthcare industry for imaging and implants. However, most small antennas are not highly directive and are detuned when in the presence of a dielectric. The human body can be compared to a series of lossy dielectric media. A novel antenna design, the orthogonal coil, is proposed to counter both of these shortcomings. As loop antennas radiate primarily in the magnetic field, their far field pattern is less influenced by nearby lossy dielectrics. By exciting two orthogonal coil antennas in quadrature, their beams in the H-plane constructively add in one direction and cancel in the other. The result is a small, yet directive antenna, when placed near a dielectric interface. In addition to present a review of the current literature relating to small antennas and dipoles near lossy interfaces, the far field of the orthogonal coil antenna is derived. The directivity is then plotted for various conditions to observe the effect of changing dielectric constants, separation from the interface, etc. Numeric simulations were performed using both Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) in MATLAB and Finite Element Method (FEM) in Ansys HFSS using a anatomically accurate high-fidelity head mesh that was generated from the Visible Human Project® data. The following problem has been addressed: find the best radio-frequency path through the brain for a given receiver position - on the top of the sinus cavity. Two parameters: transmitter position and radiating frequency should be optimized simultaneously such that (i) the propagation path through the brain is the longest; and (ii) the received power is maximized. To solve this problem, we have performed a systematic and comprehensive study of the electromagnetic fields excited in the head by the aforementioned orthogonal dipoles. Similar analyses were performed using pulses to detect Alzheimer’s disease, and on the femur to detect osteoporosis.