Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering

This project is focused on computer modeling of so-called meta-materials, and on the exploitation of metamaterials in the design of electrically small antennas. For modeling, COMSOL Multiphysics 3.3 was used. Simulations were focused on impedance matching of antennas. Antennas with metamaterials were compared with corresponding conventional antennas without metamaterial layers. The project does not investigate the creation of metamaterials; the project concentrates on their influence on crucial parameters of antennas. Next step this project is focused on optimalization this structure in program Matlab version R2009b. We used optimalization method PSO (swarms of particles) and results are comparing whit results calculating in COMSOL program.

This master’s thesis deals with user influence on miniature antennas in mobile application. Electrically small antennas including fundamental performance properties and limitations are introduced in the theoretical section of this thesis. This section also deals with microstrip antennas and their common types. The accent is on PIFA antennas, their typical constructions and methods of miniaturization. In the practical section, dual-band PIFA antenna for operation at frequencies of systems GSM900 and GSM1800 is designed with the assistance of electromagnetic field simulator CST Microwave Studio. On this type of antenna, the user influence on impedance matching and radiation pattern in data mode (the user is typing message or browsing with the phone) is investigated. For this purpose the hand phantom, corresponding to author’s right hand, was made from agar based material. For typical position of human hand is designed matching network, which eliminate the user influence and ensure correct function of antenna.

Nuclear quadropole spectroscopy is a modern analytical method for detecting specific solid state materials, e.g. explosives, drugs etc. It uses phenomenon of atomic nucleus called nuclear quadrupole moment. NQR method is very similar to common nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that is why major principles are explained using NMR. The thesis deals with basic principle of NQR, its usage for explosives detection and also detection of other chemical compounds and many other useful applications. The thesis deals with specific circuit design, techniques for sufficient sensitivity, impedance matching and circuit isolation. Practical part consists of simulations as well as designs of a few impedance transformers, pi-networks, and coils. Also experimental probe was created. In the last part, NQR workplace was assembled and a few chemical compounds were detected. These were KClO3, NaClO3 and NaNO2 . Finally minimum detectable amount of potassium chlorate as the strongest signal of these was determined.

La recherche de nouveaux matériaux a permis de nouveaux développements au cours de ces dernières décennies. Ce sont entre autres les diélectriques artificiels ou encore les métamatériaux. Cependant, si ces matériaux restent passifs, malgré tous les développements possibles, les performances des antennes, ou autres structures électromagnétiques qui découlent d’eux seront toujours confrontés aux mêmes limitations fondamentales. En intégrant des circuits actifs dans ces matériaux, par exemple des résistances négatives, des capacités négatives et des inductances négatives, il est possible de dépasser ces limitations ainsi les propriétés synthétisables et les applications d’ingénierie pourront être significativement élargies. En effet, cela permettrait de créer des matériaux et des dispositifs dont les propriétés ne seront pas possibles autrement et surpasseraient celles des matériaux existant dans la nature. Cette thèse a été l’occasion dans un premier temps d’utiliser les circuits non-Foster qui sont des circuits à rétroaction actif, pour l’adaptation d’une antenne électriquement petite à basses fréquence. Ceci a permis de mettre en évidence ses avantages par rapport à une adaptation passive plus conventionnelle.Ensuite, des capacités négatives ainsi que des inductances négatives et positives ont été conçues. Leur fonctionnement totalement différent des composants passifs a été mis en exergue. Ce qui nous a conduit à les appliquer sur des structures périodiques. Cela a donné des résultats intéressants comme la propagation supraluminique sur une ligne de transmission des ondes. Et en les appliquant à la cellule unitaire d’une surface de métamatériaux qui est aussi une structure périodique, sa taille est réduite pour une plus grande compacité des antennes à cavités conçues pour les basses fréquences où la longueur d’onde est très grande. / The search of new materials has enabled new developments in recent decades. Among these are artificial or dielectric metamaterials. However, if these materials are passive, despite all the possible developments, the antennas performances or other structures resulting from them will still face the same fundamental limitations. By adding active circuits in these materials, such as negative resistors, negatives capacitors and negative inductors, it is possible to overcome these limitations and the synthesized properties and engineering applications can be significantly expanded. Indeed, this would create materials and devices with properties which can allow us to obtain behavior nonexistent in nature. This open the way to new applications. In this thesis, we explore the opportunity at first to use non-Foster circuits that are active feedback circuit, in the matching network of an electrically small antenna for low frequency operation. This helped to highlight its advantages over more conventional passive matching. Then, negative capacitors and negative and positive inductors were fabricated. Their totally different behaviors with passive components were also highlighted. This led us to apply them on periodic structures. Interesting results were obtained as superluminal wave propagation on a transmission line. And by applying to the unit cell of a metamaterial surface which is also a periodic structure, the size is reduced to a more compact cavity antennas designed for low frequency where the wavelength is very large.

<p>Implantable wireless devices are used to treat a variety of diseases that are not able to be treated with pharmaceuticals or traditional surgery, These implantable devices have use in the treatment of neurological disorders like epilepsy, optical disorders such as glaucoma, or injury related issues such as targeted muscle reinnervation. These devices can rely upon harvesting power from an inductive wireless power source and batteries. Improvements to how well the devices utilize this power directly increase the efficacy of the device operation as well as the device's lifetime, reducing the need for future surgeries or implantations. </p> <p> I have designed an improvement to cavity resonator based wireless power by designing a dynamic impedance matching implantable power supply, capable of tracking with device motion throughout a changing magnetic field and tracking with changing powering frequencies. This cavity resonator based system presents further challenges practically in the turn-on cycle of the improved device. </p> <p> I further design a coil-to-coil based wireless power system, capable of dynamically impedance matching a high quality factor coil to optimize power transfer during steady state, while also reducing turn-on transient power required in dynamic systems by utilizing a second low quality factor coil. This second coil has a broadband response and is capable of turning on at lower powers than that of the high quality factor coil. The low quality factor coil powers the circuitry that dynamically matches the impedance of the high quality factor coil, allowing for low power turn on while maintaining high power transfer at all operating frequencies to the implantable device. </p> <p> Finally, an integrated circuit is designed, fabricated, and tested that is capable of smoothly providing regulated DC power to the implantable device by stepping up from wireless power to a reasonable voltage level or stepping down from a battery to a reasonable voltage level for the device. The chip is fabricated in 0.18um CMOS process and is capable of providing power to the "Bionode" implantable device. </p>

While a lot of time and resources have been placed into transceiver design, due to the pace of a conventional engineering design process, the design of a power amplifier is often completed using scattered resources; and not always in a methodological manner, and frequently even by an iterative trial and error process. In this thesis, a research question is posed which enables for the investigation of the possibility of streamlining the design flow for power amplifiers. After thorough theoretical investigation of existing power amplifier design methods and modelling, inductors inevitably used in power amplifier design were identified as a major drawback to efficient design, even when examples of inductors are packaged in design HIT-Kits. The main contribution of this research is engineering of an inductor design process, which in-effect contributes towards enhancing conventional power amplifiers. This inductance search algorithm finds the highest quality factor configuration of a single-layer square spiral inductor within certain tolerance using formulae for inductance and inductor parasitics of traditional single-π inductor model. Further contribution of this research is a set of algorithms for the complete design of switch-mode (Class-E and Class-F) power amplifiers and their output matching networks. These algorithms make use of classic deterministic design equations so that values of parasitic components can be calculated given input parameters, including required output power, centre frequency, supply voltage, and choice of class of operation. The hypothesis was satisfied for SiGe BiCMOS S35 process from Austriamicrosystems (AMS). Several metal-3 and thick-metal inductors were designed using the abovementioned algorithm and compared with experimental results provided by AMS. Correspondence was established between designed, experimental and EM simulation results, enabling qualification of inductors other than those with experimental results available from AMS by means of EM simulations with average relative errors of 3.7% for inductors and 21% for the Q factor at its peak frequency. For a wide range of inductors, Q-factors of 10 and more were readily experienced. Furthermore, simulations were performed for number of Class-E and Class-F amplifier configurations with HBTs with ft greater than 60 GHz and total emitter area of 96 μm² as driving transistors to complete the hypothesis testing. For the complete PA system design (including inductors), simulations showed that switch-mode power amplifiers for 50 Ω load at 2.4 GHz centre frequency can be designed using the streamlined method of this research for the output power of about 6 dB less than aimed. This power loss was expected, since it can be attributed to non-ideal properties of the driving transistor and Q-factor limitations of the integrated inductors, assumptions which the computations of the routine were based on. Although these results were obtained for a single micro-process, it was further speculated that outcome of this research has a general contribution, since streamlined method can be used with a much wider range of CMOS and BiCMOS processes, when low-gigahertz operating power amplifiers are needed. This theory was confirmed by means of simulation and fabrication in 180 nm BiCMOS process from IBM, results of which were also presented. The work presented here, was combined with algorithms for SPICE netlist extraction and the spiral inductor layout extraction (CIF and GDSII formats). This secondary research outcome further contributed to the completeness of the design flow. All the above features showed that the routine developed here is substantially better than cut-and-try methods for design of power amplifiers found in the existing body of knowledge. / Thesis (PhD(Eng))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Although the majority of wireless receiver subsystems have moved to digital signal processing over the last decade, the low noise amplifier (LNA) remains a crucial analogue subsystem in any design being the dominant subsystem in determining the noise figure (NF) and dynamic range of the receiver as a whole. In this research a novel LNA configuration, namely the LC-ladder and capacitive shunt-shunt feedback topology, was proposed for use in the implementation of very wideband LNAs. This was done after a thorough theoretical investigation of LNA configurations available in the body of knowledge from which it became apparent that for the most part narrowband LNA configurations are applied to wideband applications with suboptimal results, and also that the wideband configurations that exist have certain shortcomings. A mathematical model was derived to describe the new configuration and consists of equations for the input impedance, input return loss, gain and NF, as well as an approximation of the worst case IIP3. Compact design equations were also derived from this model and a design strategy was given which allows for electronic design automation of a LNA using this configuration. A process for simultaneously optimizing the circuit for minimum NF and maximum gain was deduced from this model and different means of improving the linearity of the LNA were given. This proposed design process was used successfully throughout this research. The accuracy of the mathematical model has been verified using simulations. Two versions of the LNA were also fabricated and the measured results compared well with these simulations. The good correlation found between the calculated, simulated and measured results prove the accuracy of the model, and some comments on how the accuracy of the model could be improved even further are provided as well. The simulated results of a LNA designed for the 1 GHz to 18 GHz band in the IBM 8HP process show a gain of 21.4 dB and a minimum NF of only 1.7 dB, increasing to 3.3 dB at the upper corner frequency while maintaining an input return loss below -10 dB. After steps were taken to improve the linearity, the IIP3 of the LNA is -14.5 dBm with only a small degradation in NF now 2.15 dB at the minimum. The power consumption of the respective LNAs are 12.75 mW and 23.25 mW and each LNA occupies a chip area of only 0.43 mm2. Measured results of the LNA fabricated in the IBM 7WL process had a gain of 10 dB compared to an expected simulated gain of 20 dB, however significant path loss was introduced by the IC package and PCB parasitics. The S11 tracked the simulated response very well and remained below -10 dB over the feasible frequency range. Reliable noise figure measurements could not be obtained. The measured P1dB compression point is -22 dBm. A 60 GHz LNA was also designed using this topology in a SiGe process with ƒT of 200 GHz. A simulated NF of 5.2 dB was achieved for a gain of 14.2 dB and an input return loss below -15 dB using three amplifier stages. The IIP3 of the LNA is -8.4 dBm and the power consumption 25.5 mW. Although these are acceptable results in the mm-wave range it was however found that the wideband nature of this configuration is redundant in the unlicensed 60 GHz band and results are often inconsistent with the design theory due to second order effects. The wideband results however prove that the LC-ladder and capacitive shunt-shunt feedback topology is a viable means for especially implementing LNAs that require a very wide operating frequency range and also very low NF over that range. / Thesis (PhD(Eng))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the question of how to harvest RF energy and if we can harvest enough RF energy for it to be useful in an application. It is aimed towards sensor node applications, commonly used in a typical office environment. The WiFi band was chosen since it is omnipresent in the same environment. With the current development within wireless technology and the IoT domain the demand for low power electronic applications has increased and one of the challenges is to find efficient and sustainable ways of powering these types of devices.The best possible theoretical power content was initially calculated followed by measurements in an office. A circuit was designed containing an impedance matching network and rectifier. A measurement application was constructed using a microcontroller. Measurements were made in an office environment and the maximum harvested energy over 24 hours was 350 mJ. The energy was stored in a supercapacitor and is estimated to be enough to power a low energy sensor for about 30 seconds. A large part of the thesis is devoted to impedance matching involving calculating, simulating and experimenting to get a good result. / Med den nuvarande utvecklingen inom trådlös teknik och IoT-domänen har efterfrågan på elektroniska applikationer med låg effekt ökat och en av utmaningarna är att hitta effektiva och hållbara sätt att driva dessa typer av enheter. Syftet med detta projekt var att undersöka frågan hur vi skördar radiovågsenergi och kan vi skörda tillräckligt mycket med energi för att den ska vara användbar i en applikation. I ett typiskt kontor finns fler källor till radiovågor, däribland WiFi som antas ha en hög nyttjandegrad. Projektet valde att inrikta sig på WiFi bandet och undersöka om det går att utvinna tillräckligt med energi där.Projektet strävade efter att leverera en färdig produkt med alla ingående delar, en antenn, en likriktare, en lagringsenhet och ett matchningsnätverk för att anpassa antenn och likriktare till varandra. För att undersöka hur mycket energi som finns att skörda gjordes först beräkningar och sedan mätningar i bland annat ett typiskt kontor. Det konstaterades att det rör sig om väldigt låga nivåer och betonas att de apparater som använder WiFi klarar av att känna av signaler som är långt mycket lägre än de som krävs för att kunna utvinna energi. Detta innebär alltså att apparaterna kan kommunicera felfritt samtidigt som energiinnehållet är så lågt att det inte går att utvinna någon energi.Projektet ägnar stor del åt att optimera den impedansmatchning som måste ske mellan antenn och likriktare för att största möjliga effektutbyte ska kunna ske. Basen är ett kretskort med ett typiskt impedansnätverk och genom beräkningar, simuleringar och experiment tas en prototyp fram. För att kunna analysera resultaten används en mikrokontroller som tar de analoga värdena, omvandlar dem till digitala och skickar dem till en PC för analys.Mätningar gjordes i en kontorsmiljö och den maximala mängden energi som gick att utvinna var 350 mJ på 24 timmar. Energin lagrades i en superkondensator och bedöms vara tillräcklig för att driva en lågenergisensor i ca 30 sekunder.

[pt] Ondas ultrassônicas podem ser usadas para ensaios não destrutivos. Elas são geradas e adquiridas por transdutores. Transdutores acústicos eletromagnéticos (EMATs) possuem algumas vantagens em relação a transdutores tradicionais piezoelétricos, principalmente a capacidade de gerar ondas ultrassônicas sem necessidade de contato físico com o meio em teste. No entanto, sua principal desvantagem é a menor eficiência, que resulta em uma relação sinal-ruído mais baixa. Técnicas de casamento de impedância podem ser utilizadas para combater isso. A rede de casamento de impedância do tipo circuito L é comumente utilizada para garantir a transferência máxima de potência da eletrônica de excitação para o EMAT. Existem diversas variáveis que podem afetar a impedância de um EMAT além do próprio transdutor, como as propriedades e distância do material, a temperatura e a frequência de excitação. Portanto, para garantir a transferência máxima de potência, o circuito de casamento de impedância precisa ser reconfigurado e ter seus valores ajustados sempre que um dos fatores mencionados acima sofrer alteração. O processo de ajuste manual desta rede é trabalhoso e demorado, portanto, sua automação pode trazer grandes benefícios para o uso de transdutores EMAT. Esta dissertação propõe um circuito simplificado, com um único elemento, para casamento de impedância de EMATs. Os valores teóricos ideais para circuitos mono-elemento foram obtidos. Simulações confirmaram sua viabilidade em aumentar a eficiência do EMAT. Circuitos de casamento manual e automáticos foram projetados e construídas. Configurações experimentais foram elaboradas e postas em prática. Experimentos com dois transdutores EMATs distintos foram conduzidos utilizando várias frequências. O sistema automático foi capaz de determinar a melhor configuração para o circuito mono-elemento de casamento de impedância e forneceu um ganho de até 5,6 dB, similar à solução manual. A configuração automática foi mais de duas vezes mais rápida do que a manual. / [en] Ultrasonic waves can be used for nondestructive testing. They are generated and acquired by transducers. Electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) have some advantages over traditional piezoelectric transducers. Mainly, the ability to generate ultrasonic waves without requiring physical contact with the medium under test. Nevertheless, they present a main drawback of less efficiency, which leads to a lower signal-to-noise ratio. To overcome this, impedance matching techniques can be used. The L-network impedance matching network is often used in order to ensure maximum power transfer to the EMAT from the excitation electronics. There is a wide range of variables that can affect an EMAT s impedance besides the transducer itself, namely, the properties and distance to the specimen material, the temperature, and the excitation frequency. Therefore, to ensure optimal power transfer, the Lnetwork s configuration needs to be tuned whenever one of the factors that affect impedance changes. The process of manually adjusting the impedance matching network is a laborious and time-consuming task, therefore, its automation can be of great benefit to the use of EMAT transducers. In this work, a simplified one-element automatic matching network is proposed. The theoretical optimal values for the one-element matching networks are derived. Simulations confirmed their effectiveness to increase EMAT efficiency. Manual and automatic networks were designed and built. Experiments were performed with two dierent EMATs at several frequencies. The automatic system was able to determine the best conguration for the one-element matching network and provided up to 5.6 dB gain, similar to the manual solution. The automatic setup was more than two-fold faster than the manual one.