This dissertation presents the investigation of biologically inspired direction finding (DF) and localization systems, 3D printing solution for RF components and systems, and fundamental aspects of antennas regarding bandwidth and power efficiency. Biologically inspired direction finding and localization systems are explored first. Inspired by the human binaural auditory system, an improved direction of arrival (DoA) estimation technique using two antennas with a lossy scatterer in between them to achieve additional magnitude cues is proposed. By exploiting the incident-angle- dependent magnitude and phase differences between the two antennas with specially designed scatterer, the DoA of an incident signal from two-dimensional (2-D) / three- dimensional (3-D) space can be estimated. Besides, compact DF systems with enhanced directional sensitivity using a scatterer of high permittivity in between adjacent closely spaced electrically-small antennas are examined. Inspired by the human monaural auditory system, a novel single-antenna DF technique is also proposed by exploiting the incident-angle-dependent spectra for a broadband RF signal only. In addition, a wideband superior DF system utilizing Luneburg lens and uniformly placed detectors on the equator of the lens is evaluated. The DoA is estimated using the amplitude distribution of the received signals at the detectors. Moreover, A portable inventory localization system utilizing hybrid RF (for direction, using previously introduced DF techniques) and ultrasound (for distance) signals is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Next, a multilayer phased array system is designed and individual parts are printed to demonstrate the applicability of hybrid thermal wire-mesh embedding (for conductors) and thermoplastic extrusion (for dielectrics) techniques for additively manufacturing RF17integrated systems. Finally, fundamental aspects of antennas in terms of bandwidth limit for reactive matching and power efficiency for non-Foster matching are analyzed.

This master’s thesis covers the design and implementation of a monopulse directionof arrival (DOA) estimation algorithm on an FPGA. The goal is to implement a complete system that is capable of estimating the bearing of an incident signal. In order to determine the estimate quality both a theoretical and practical noise analysis of the signal chain is performed. Special focus is placed on the statistical properties of the transformation from I/Q-demodulated signals with correlated noise to a polar representation. The pros and cons for three different methods of calculating received signal phasors are also covered.The system is limited to two receiving channels which constrains this report to a 2D analysis. In addition the used hardware is limited to C-band signals. We show that an FPGA implementation of monopulse techniques is definitely viable and that an SNR higher than ten dB allows for a gaussian approximation of the polar representationof an I/Q signal.

In certain applications involving direction of arrival (DOA) estimation the operator may have a-priori information on some of the DOAs. This information could refer to a target known to be present at a certain position or to a reflection. In this study, the authors investigate a methodology for array processing that exploits the information on the known DOAs for estimating the unknown DOAs as accurately as possible. Algorithms are presented that can efficiently handle the case of both correlated and uncorrelated sources when the receiver is a uniform linear array. The authors find a major improvement in estimator accuracy in feasible scenarios, and they compare the estimator performance to the corresponding theoretical stochastic Cramer-Rao bounds as well as to the performance of other methods capable of exploiting such prior knowledge. In addition, real data from an ultra-sound array is applied to the investigated estimators. / <p>QC 20130107</p>

Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology and its use in imaging and sensing have drawnsignicant interest in the last two decades. Extensive studies have contributed toutilize UWB transient scattering for automated target recognition and imagingpurposes. In this thesis a near-eld UWB synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagingalgorithm is presented.It is shown with measurements and simulation, that it is possible to reconstruct an imageof an object in the near eld region using UWB technology and SAR imaging algorithm.However the nal SAR image is highly aected by unwanted scattered elds at each pixelusually observed as an image artifact in the nal image. In this study these artifactsare seen as a smile around the main object. Two methods are suggested in this thesiswork to suppress this artifact. The rst method combines the scattered eld informationreceived from both rear and front of the object to reconstruct two separate images, onefrom rear view and one from front view of the object respectively. Since the scatteredelds from behind the object are mirrored, the pixel by pixel multiplication of thesetwo images for objects with simple geometry will cancel the artifact. This method isvery simple and fast applicable to objects with simple geometry. However this methodcannot be used for objects with rather complex geometry and boundaries. Thereforethe Range Point Migration (RPM) method is used along with the global characteristicsof the observed range map to introduce a new artifact rejection method based on thedirectional of arrival (DOA) of scattered elds at each pixel. DOA information can beused to calculate an optimum theta for each antenna. This optimum angle along withthe real physical direction of arrival at each position can produce a weighting factor thatlater can be used to suppress the eect of undesired scattered elds producing the smileshaped artifact. Final results of this study clearly show that the UWB SAR accompaniedwith DOA can produce an image of an object free of undesired artifact from scatteredeld of adjacent antennas.

In this thesis the direction of arrival estimation of wideband signals using frequency invariant beamforming method is examined. The difficulty with the direction of arrival estimation of wideband signals is that it is not possible to obtain a single covariance matrix valid for the whole frequency spectrum of the signal. There are various methods proposed in the literature to overcome this difficulty. The common aim of all the methods is to obtain a composite covariance matrix for the overall band of the signal. In this thesis, we concentrate on a method in [12]. This method is based on a beamforming technique that provides frequency invariant beams in the band of interest. Therefore there is no need for frequency decomposition as it is done with the other wideband methods. A comparison of the frequency invariant beamforming method with coherent signal subspace methods and narrow band methods is also given.

ITC/USA 2013 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Ninth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 21-24, 2013 / Bally's Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV / In this paper, a new technique utilizing a scatterer of high dielectric constant in between electrically small antennas to achieve good Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation performance is demonstrated. The phase information of the received signal at the antennas is utilized for direction estimation. The impact of the property of the scatterer on the directional sensitivity and the output signal to noise ratio (SNR) level are studied. Finally the DOA estimation accuracy is analyzed with the proposed technique under the consumption of white Gaussian noise environment.

Since World War I, the area of acoustic undersea warfare has witnessed several research activities targeting the development of advanced systems to accurately detect and localize underwater moving targets. One of the main categories of these systems is the passive sound navigation and ranging (SONAR) that searches for the location of the ships and submarines by listening to the radiated noise produced by their propellers, machinery, and flow dynamics. The performance of the passive sonar highly depends on the particular array signal processing algorithms used in practice. Presently, one of the main challenges is to accurately estimate the target direction of arrival (DOA) in severe underwater environments. This thesis is proposed to enhance the DOA estimation in two distinct applications. This first application is to improve the spatial resolution of the uniform linear towed arrays. This is done by applying new spatial extrapolation techniques called 2D- and 3D- fast orthogonal search (FOS) for both uniform linear and rectangular arrays, respectively. The presented methods show better performance than the conventional methods with respect to signal to noise ratio (SNR), number of snapshots and angular separation. Moreover it reduces the computational complexity required by the spatial extrapolation methods based on linear prediction approach. The other application concerns with developing a new DOA estimation that provides better spatial spectrum than the one provided by conventional beamforming (CBF) when a nonuniform linear array of directional frequency analysis and recording (DIFAR) sonobuoys is employed. The introduced technique or the so called fourth order cumulant beamforming (FOCBF) and shows an outstanding performance compared to CBF especially in low SNR. Furthermore, a warping FOC-BF (WFOC-BF) method obtained by augmenting a warping beamforming technique with FOC-BF is proposed to reduce the required computational complexity by FOC-BF while preserving the same performance. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-06-27 14:59:33.941

[pt] Este trabalho de tese trata do emprego de arranjos de antenas em ambientes de comunicação móvel,dando-se ênfase ao canal de dados reverso do Sistema IS-95. Propõe-se dois estimadores: um para a direção de chegada dos sinais e outro para outros dados. Inicialmente é apresentado um estudo sobre arranjos de antenas e dos principais detalhes do sistema IS-95,especialmente a multiplicidade de acesso via divisão por códigos (CDMA).Aborda-se em seguida o problema da estimação da direção da chegada(DOA), onde se constata que os algoritmos mais conhecidos na literarura especializada, tais como Atraso-e-Soma, Capon, MUSIC e ESPRIT, não apresentam desempenho satisfatório quando empregados em ambiente CDMA. Por isso, propõe-se uma versão do método de estimação de máxima verossimilhança (ML) que utiliza a técnica denominada de EM (-Expectation Maximization-).Seu emprego permitir fracionar o problema de otimização multidimensional gerado pelo estimador ML, em últimas estimações de menor dimensão,simplificando sobremaneira a solução. O estimador proposto além da DOA,permite ainda estimar a atenuação e a defasagem dos sinais incidentes. Através de simulações, constata-se que este estimador EM apresenta um desempenho bastante satisfatório.Para tornar mais completa a análise, faz-se ainda uma comparação da variância do erro na estimação da DOA comolimitante de Cramér-Rao. Em presença de multipercursos, propõe-se quatro versões de um estimador de dados, sendo que uma delas utiliza a estrutura de treliça e objetiva a decisão sequencial dos dados. O desenvolvimento de tais estimadores faz uso de bases de espaços vetoriais para representar as funções de walsh, sendo que as operações aritméticas convencionais . Através de simulações constata-se que essas versões apresentam diferentes relações entre de desempenho e custo computacional, o que permite flexibilidade na adequação do seu emprego. / [en] This thesis deals with antenna arrays when used in mobile communication environment, but the emphasis is on the reverse data link of IS-95. Two estimators are proposed: one for the direction-of-arrival (DOA) and other for the data. Initially, study of the antenna arrays is presented together with the main details of the IS-95 System, especially the details related to the code division multiple access (CDMA). After that, the problem of dirction- of-arrival estimation is discussed. It is shown that mostly of the known estimators, such as Delay-and-Sum, Capon, MUSIC and ESPRIT, do not offer reasonable performance when used in CDMA environment. Therefore, a new Maximum- Likelihood (ML) method is proposed using the so-called Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. The main advantage of using such approach is due to the fact that multidimensional optimization required by ML estimation can be split into several problems of lower dimension, thus simplifying the solution. The proposed estimator, besides the DOA estimation, also allows the estimation of attenuation and phase shift of the arriving signals. Simulations show that EM-estimator offers a fair performance when compared to other methods. In order to properly access the statistical significance of this study, the of DOA-estimation erro´s variance is compared with the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB). Under a multipath environment, four versions of a data estimator are proposed, and one of them do employ trellis. In the development of such estimators, vector basis are used to represent the Walsh functions and the module-2 operations are replaced by convenient ordinary arithmetic operations. By means of simulation, it is shown that these versions present different levels of performance and computational cost thus allowing to choose the method according to the environmentn conditions. / [es] Este trabajo de tese trata del empleo de arreglos de antenas en ambientes de comunicación móvil, con énfasis en el canal de datos reverso del Sistema IS-95. Se proponen dos estimadores: uno para la dirección de llegada de las señales y otro para el resto de los datos. Inicialmente se presenta un estudio sobre arreglos de antenas y los principales detalles del sistema IS-95,especialmente la multiplicidad de acceso vía división por códigos (CDMA). Se aborda el problema de la estimación de la dirección de llegada(DOA), donde se constata que los algoritmos más conocidos en la literarura especializada, tales como Atraso-y-Suma, Capon, MUSIC y ESPRIT, no tiene un desempeño satisfactorio cuando son utilizados en ambiente CDMA. Por eso, se propone una versión del método de estimación de máxima verosimilitud(ML) que utiliza la técnica denominada de EM (-Expectation Maximization-).Su empleo permite fraccionar el problema de optimización multidimensional generado por el estimador ML, en estimaciones de menor dimensión,simplificando la solución. El estimador propuesto, además de la DOA, permite estimar la atenuación y el defasaje de las señales incidentes. A través de simulaciones, se constata que el estimador EM tiene un desempeño bastante satisfactorio. Para un análisis más completo se comparan las varianza del error en la estimación de la DOA como límite de Cramér-Rao. En presencia de multitrayectoria, se proponen cuatro versiones de un estimador de datos, donde una de ellas utiliza la extructura de celosía y objetiva la decisión secuencial de los datos. El desarrollo de tales estimadores utiliza bases de espacios vectoriales para representar las funciones de walsh, con las operaciones aritméticas convencionales . A través de simulaciones se observa que esas versiones presentan diferentes relaciones entre de desempeño y el costo computacional, que permite flexibilidad en la adecuación de su empleo.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第19712号 / 工博第4167号 / 新制||工||1643(附属図書館) / 32748 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科電気工学専攻 / (主査)教授 篠原 真毅, 教授 土居 伸二, 准教授 小嶋 浩嗣 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

This thesis considers the problem of using signals of opportunity (SOO) with known direction of arrival (DOA) for aircraft positioning. SOO is a collective name for a wide range of signals not intended for navigation but which can be intercepted by the radar warning system on an aircraft. These signals can for example aid an unassisted inertial navigation system (INS) in areas where the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is inaccessible. Challenges arise as the signals are transmitted from non-controllable sources without any guarantee of quality and availability. Hence, it is important that any estimation method utilising SOO is robust and statistically consistent in case of time-varying signals of different quality, missed detections and unreliable signals such as outliers. The problem is studied using SOO sources with either known or unknown locations. An extended Kalman filter (EKF) based solution is proposed for the first case which is shown to significantly improve the localisation performance compared to an unassisted INS in common scenarios. Yet, a number of factors affect this performance, including the measurement noise variance, the signal rate and the availability of known source locations. An outlier rejection mechanism is developed which is shown to increase the robustness of the suggested method. A numerical evaluation indicates that statistical consistency can be maintained in many situations even with the above-mentioned challenges. An EKF based simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) solution is proposed for the case with unknown SOO source locations. The flight trajectory and initialisation process of new SOO sources are critical in this case. A method based on nonlinear least squares is proposed for the initialisation process, where new SOO sources are only allowed to be initialised in the filter once a set of requirements are fulfilled. This method has shown to increase the robustness during initialisation, when the outlier rejection is not applicable. When combining known and unknown SOO source locations, a more stable localisation solution is obtained compared to when all locations are unknown. Applicability of the proposed solution is verified by a numerical evaluation. The computational time increases cubically with the number of sources in the state and quadratically with the number of measurements. The time is substantially increased during landmark initialisation.