In this dissertation, many novel low-cost planar antenna designs are presented for on-vehicle applications. Promising planar antennas showing the desired broadside and omnidirectional radiation patterns and having low-profile configurations are demonstrated. Also, studies on controlling the radiation patterns are conducted. Details of the measured and simulated results of the studied antennas are presented and discussed.

Στην παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή παρουσιάζεται µία µελέτη τυπωµένων κεραιών γεωµετρίας φράκταλ για ασύρµατες τερµατικές συσκευές, µε έµφαση στις εφαρµογές των κινητών επικοινωνιών και των ασύρµατων τοπικών δικτύων. Η ραγδαία εξέλιξη των ασύρµατων επικοινωνιών είχε ως αποτέλεσµα την σηµαντική µείωση των διαστάσεων των τερµατικών συσκευών, την ολοκλήρωση διαφορετικών υπηρεσιών διαφορετικών συχνοτήτων λειτουργίας στην ίδια συσκευή και την ανάγκη πολλαπλών κεραιών για την αντιµετώπιση του φαινοµένου της διάλειψης και της διασυµβολικής παρεµβολής του ασύρµατου καναλιού. Αυτές οι εξελίξεις έθεσαν καινούργιες απαιτήσεις στην σχεδίαση της κεραίας οδηγώντας στην ανάγκη κεραιών εξαιρετικά µικρών διαστάσεων, πολυσυχνοτικών, χαµηλού κόστους, υψηλής απόδοσης και επιθυµητών χαρακτηριστικών ακτινοβολίας κατά περίπτωση. Στα πλαίσια της διατριβής διερευνήθηκε η ικανότητα σµίκρυνσης και παραγωγής πολυσυχνοτικής συµπεριφοράς που παρουσιάζουν τα σχήµατα γεωµετρίας φράκταλ αν χρησιµοποιηθούν σαν κεραίες. Αρχικά προτείνεται µία καινούργια κατηγορία κεραιών, οι τυπωµένες µονοπολικές κεραίες γεωµετρίας φράκταλ και συγκρίνονται διάφορες γεωµετρίες φράκταλ τόσο ως προς την ικανότητα σµίκρυνσης όσο και ως προς τα χαρακτηριστικά εµπέδησης και ακτινοβολίας που παρουσιάζουν. Εξετάζεται ο καθοριστικός ρόλος του επιπέδου γείωσης αυτής της κατηγορίας κεραιών και εξάγονται γενικά συµπεράσµατα για την εκµετάλλευσή του µε τον βέλτιστο δυνατό τρόπο. Επιπλέον διερευνήθηκε η χρήση των σχηµάτων φράκταλ για την µείωση των διαστάσεων των µικροταινιακών κεραιών. Η φράκταλ ορθογώνια καµπύλη προτείνεται για εφαρµογές γραµµικής και κυκλικής πόλωσης, η οποία παρουσιάζει σηµαντική ικανότητα σµίκρυνσης και προσφέρει πολλούς σχεδιαστικούς βαθµούς ελευθερίας που µπορούν να χρησιµοποιηθούν είτε για περαιτέρω µείωση του µεγέθους της είτε για την διατήρηση του εύρους ζώνης της σε ικανοποιητικά επίπεδα. Λόγω του συµπαγούς σχήµατος και των επιθυµητών χαρακτηριστικών των τυπωµένων µονοπολικών και µικροταινιακών κεραιών φράκταλ, µελετάται περαιτέρω η χρησιµοποίησή τους για την υλοποίηση συστηµάτων πολλαπλών κεραιών µε σκοπό την βελτίωση της ποιότητας του λαµβανοµένου σήµατος. Ακόµη µελετάται η ικανότητα παραγωγής πολυσυχνοτικής συµπεριφοράς της µονοπολικής κεραίας Sierpinski και προτείνεται µία τροποποίηση η οποία µειώνει σηµαντικά το µέγεθος της κεραίας και καθίσταται δυνατόν να τυπωθεί σε ασύρµατες συσκευές µικρού µεγέθους. Επιπλέον, διερευνώνται διάφορες τεχνικές για να ελεγχθούν οι συχνότητες συντονισµού της κεραίας και να συµπέσουν µε τις εκάστοτε επιθυµητές µπάντες λειτουργίας. Τέλος εξετάζεται η επίδραση των διαστάσεων του επιπέδου γείωσης στα χαρακτηριστικά εµπέδησης του συστήµατος. / This Ph.D. thesis presents a comprehensive study on printed fractal antennas for wireless terminal devices, with emphasis on mobile and wireless local area network applications. The rapid evolution of wireless communications resulted in a decrease of terminal devices’ dimensions, in the integration of different services, operating in different spectra, in the same device and finally in the deployment of multiple antenna systems to mitigate the phenomena of fading and intersymbol interference of wireless channel. These evolutions, in turn, set new demands on antenna’s design leading to the necessity of exceptionally small, multiband and low cost radiators possessing high efficiency and desirable radiation characteristics. In the context of the present work, the miniaturization and multiband ability of fractal shaped antennas is examined. Initially a new antenna type is proposed, that of printed fractal monopole antennas, and several innovative fractal shaped monopoles are compared with respect to their miniaturization ability, input impedance and radiation characteristics. The important role of the ground plane is also investigated and general conclusions are drawn to exploit its effects in the most appropriate way. The application of fractals on microstrip antennas was further studied with the fractal rectangular curve (frc) microstrip antenna being proposed for linear and circular polarization applications. The frc microstrip antenna proved to possess a noticeable miniaturization ability and a geometry with several degrees of freedom that can be used either to reduce further its size, or to keep the bandwidth to a satisfactory level. Due to the compact size and desirable electrical characteristics of printed monopole and microstrip fractal antennas, they were further considered for the implementation of multi element antenna systems in order to improve the SNR of the received signal. Finally, the multiband ability of the Sierpinski monopole antenna is investigated and a modification is proposed to decrease the overall antenna height making it feasible to be printed in small terminal devices. Several techniques to allocate the desirable bands of interest are also discussed along with the effect the ground plane dimension’s on the system’s input impedance.

Although current head imaging technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are capable of providing accurate diagnosis of brain injuries such as stroke and brain tumour, they have several limitations including high cost, long scanning time, bulky and mostly stationary. On the other hand, radar-based microwave imaging technology can offer a low cost, non-invasive and non-ionisation method to complement these existing imaging techniques. Moreover, a compact and wearable device for microwave head imaging is required to facilitate frequent or real-time monitoring of a patient by providing more comfort to the patient. Therefore, a wearable head imaging device would be a significant advantage compared to the existing wideband microwave head sensing devices which typically utilise rigid antenna structure. Furthermore, the wearable device can be integrated into different microwave imaging setups such as real-time wearable head imaging systems, portable systems and conventional stationary imaging tools for use in hospitals and clinics. This thesis presents the design and development of wearable devices utilising flexible antenna arrays and compact radio frequency (RF) switching circuits for wideband microwave head imaging applications. The design and characterisation of sensing antennas using flexible materials for the wearable head imaging device are presented in the first stage of this study. There are two main variations of monopole antennas that have been developed in this research, namely trapezoidal and elliptical configurations. The antennas have been fabricated using different flexible substrate materials such as flexible FR-4, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and textile. Wideband performances of the antennas have been achieved by optimising their co-planar waveguide feeding line structures. Importantly, the efficiencies of the fabricated antennas have been tested using a realistic human head phantom by evaluating their impedance matching performances when operating in close proximity to the head phantom. The second stage of the study presents the development of wearable antenna arrays using the proposed flexible antennas. The first prototype has been built using an array of 12 flexible antennas and a conformal absorbing material backed with a conductive sheet to suppress the back lobe radiation of the monopole antennas. Additionally, the absorber also acts as a mounting base to hold the antennas where the wearable device can be comfortably worn like a hat during the measurement and monitoring processes. The effect of mutual coupling between adjacent antennas in the array has been investigated and optimised. However, the use of the absorbing material makes the device slightly rigid where it can only be fitted on a specific head size. Thus, a second prototype has been developed by using a head band to realise a stretchable configuration that can be mounted on different sizes of human heads. Furthermore, due to the stretchable characteristic of the prototype, the antennas can be firmly held in their positions when measurements are made. In addition, fully textile based sensing antennas are employed in this prototype making it perfectly suitable for monitoring purposes. Low cost and compact switching circuits to provide switching mechanism for the wearable antenna array are presented in the third stage of this study. The switching circuit is integrated with the antenna array to form a novel wearable microwave head imaging device eliminating the use of external bulky switching network. The switching circuit has been built using off-the-shelf components where it can be controlled wirelessly over Bluetooth connection. Then, a new integrated switching circuit prototype has been fabricated using 6-layer printed circuit board (PCB) technology. For the purpose of impedance matching for the radio-frequency (RF) routing lines on the circuit, a wideband Microstrip-to-Microstrip transition is utilised. The final stage of this study investigates the efficacy and sensitivity of the proposed wearable devices by performing experiments on developed realistic human head phantoms. Initially, a human head phantom has been fabricated using food-based ingredients such as tap water, sugar, salt, and agar. Subsequently, lamb's brains have been used to improve the head phantom employed in the experiments to better mimic the heterogeneous human brain. In terms of imaging process, an interpolation technique developed using experimental data has been proposed to assist the localisation of a haemorrhage stroke location using the confocal delay-and-sum algorithm. This new technique is able to provide sensible accuracy of the location of the blood clot inside the brain. The wearable antenna arrays using flexible antennas and their integrations with compact and low cost switching circuits reported in this thesis make valuable contribution to microwave head imaging field. It is expected that a low-cost, compact and wearable radar-based microwave head imaging can be fully realised in the future for wide range of applications including static scanning setup in hospitals, portable equipment in ambulances and as a standalone wearable head monitoring system for remote and real-time monitoring purposes.

For laptop computers, the conventional internal antennas are usually used to operate in the WLAN system only, which can not provide sufficient and seamless services for wireless users. In order to overcome this problem, we propose some internal antennas having dual-/multi-network operation capability in this dissertation. Firstly, we present a combo antenna, which combines two shorted monopole antennas for operating in the WWAN/WLAN dual-network system. Secondly, we introduce a shorted monopole antenna through adding a parasitic element to enhance the impedance bandwidth for operating in the WLAN/WiMAX dual-network system. Thirdly, for achieving the compact-size antenna, we present a composite antenna which is composed of a ceramic chip and a printed radiating portion. Fourthly, we introduce a wideband shorted monopole antenna which can provide a wide bandwidth to cover the WPAN, WLAN, and WiMAX operations, and apply it to the MIMO system. Finally, we propose a coupling-type monopole antenna having multi-network operation capability and a compact size, which is about the smallest antenna for wideband operation in the laptop computer so far.

Στην παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή παρουσιάζεται µια εκτενής µελέτη συστηµάτων απόκλισης τυπωµένων κεραιών για ασύρµατες συσκευές. Η εξέλιξη των ασύρµατων επικοινωνιών και ειδικότερα η κατανόηση των φαινοµένων που λαµβάνουν χώρα στο ασύρµατο κανάλι µετάδοσης έδωσε ώθηση στην ανάπτυξη τεχνικών αντιµετώπισης φαινοµένων όπως η πολυοδευτική εξασθένηση και η διασυµβολική παρεµβολή. Τέτοιες τεχνικές είναι οι τεχνικές απόκλισης και ειδικότερα οι τεχνικές απόκλισης κεραιών (χώρου, πόλωσης και διαγράµµατος ακτινοβολίας) οι οποίες συνδυάζουν τα λαµβανόµενα από διαφορετικές κεραίες σήµατα µε σκοπό την δηµιουργία ενός σήµατος υψηλότερης στάθµης. Η µεθοδολογία αξιολόγησης της ικανότητας απόκλισης ενός συστήµατος κεραιών περιλαµβάνει τα κριτήρια του συντελεστή συσχέτισης των λαµβανοµένων σηµάτων και του λόγου των µέσων ενεργών κερδών των κεραιών που αποτελούν το σύστηµα. Καθοριστικό ρόλο στην τεχνική απόκλισης διαδραµατίζει ο τρόπος που συνδυάζονται τα λαµβανόµενα σήµατα στον δέκτη, µε την τεχνική του µεγίστου λόγου να αποτελεί την βέλτιστη λύση από πλευράς απόδοσης, αλλά ταυτοχρόνως την πιο δύσκολα υλοποιήσιµη. Η ποσοτικοποίηση της ικανότητας απόκλισης ενός συστήµατος πραγµατοποιείται µε το κέρδος απόκλισης το οποίο λαµβάνει διαφορετικές µορφές και ουσιαστικά παρέχει την πληροφορία του ποσοστού βελτίωσης του συνδυασµένου σήµατος σε σχέση µε µία κεραία αναφοράς. Στα πλαίσια της διατριβής αναπτύχθηκαν συστήµατα απόκλισης τυπωµένων κεραιών δύο, τριών, τεσσάρων έως και έξι στοιχείων. Χρησιµοποιήθηκαν κεραίες γεωµετρίας fractal λόγω της σπουδαίας ικανότητας σµίκρυνσης που παρέχει η εν λόγω τεχνική καθώς και το µονόπολο γεωµετρίας ανεστραµµένου F. Ακολουθήθηκε η µεθοδολογία αξιολόγησης της ικανότητας απόκλισης για όλα τα προτεινόµενα συστήµατα και έγινε σύγκριση µεταξύ των συστηµάτων. Μελετήθηκε αφ’ ενός η επίδραση της θέσης της κεραίας σε µία ασύρµατη συσκευή και αφ’ ετέρου η επιλογή της καταλληλότερης προς χρήση κεραίας στην µείωση του φαινοµένου της αµοιβαίας σύζευξης, φαινόµενο το οποίο αποτελεί τον κυριότερο παράγοντα µείωσης της συνολικής ικανότητας απόκλισης σε ένα σύστηµα πολλαπλών κεραιών. Ακόµη, µελετήθηκαν συστήµατα απόκλισης κεραιών τα οποία λειτουργούν σε διαφορετικές µπάντες συχνοτήτων. Τέλος, έγινε µια συγκριτική µελέτη για τον ρόλο που διαδραµατίζει το περιβάλλον και ο τρόπος που κατανέµεται η προσπίπτουσα ισχύς στην συµπεριφορά της απόκλισης των µελετηθέντων συστηµάτων. / This thesis presents a comprehensive study on printed antenna diversity systems for wireless devices. The current upsurge in wireless communications systems and, in particular, the realization of the immanent propagation mechanisms that take place in the transmission medium led to the development of special techniques in order to mitigate the undesired phenomena such as multipath fading and intersymbol interference. Antenna diversity (space, polarization and pattern) is one of these techniques and is based on the assumption that the received signals of two or more antennas could be efficiently combined in order to produce a stronger signal. The evaluation of the diversity performance involves the correlation coefficient of the received signals and the mean effective gain ratio of the diversity antennas. A key role in diversity action plays the combining technique used with the maximum ratio technique producing the best results. Diversity performance is “quantified” by means of diversity gain, which gives the amount of improvement of the combined signal relative to a signal received from a reference antenna. In this thesis, printed antenna diversity systems comprising up to six elements were developed. Antennas of fractal geometry such as the Koch, Minkowski, Sierpinski and FRC monopoles, were utilized due to their inherent miniaturization ability as well as the printed inverted F antenna. All the proposed systems were evaluated according to the methodology mentioned earlier and a comparison of the diversity performance between the systems was carried out. The effect of the antenna placement as well as the proper antenna selection for each system on the reduction of mutual coupling was addressed, which is an issue of primal importance in multi element antenna systems. Multi band antenna diversity systems were also studied. Finally, the impact of the environment’s power distribution on the diversity performance of the antenna systems was considered.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:55:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BrunaALS_DISSERT.pdf: 4847936 bytes, checksum: ecc365df0d6ba32afff7d15a2ae1d14a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-14 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / The microstrip antennas are largely used in wireless communication systems due to their low cost, weight, less complex construction and manufacturing, in addition to its versatility. UWB systems have emerged as an alternative to wireless communications over short distances because they offer of higher capacity and lower multipath distortion than other systems with the same purpose. Combining the advantages of microstrip antennas to the characteristics of UWB, it is possible to develop more and more smaller devices, with diverse geometries to operate satisfactorily in these systems. This paper aims to propose alternatives to microstrip antennas for UWB systems operate in the range between 3.1 and 10.6 GHz, with a patch on circular ring. Some techniques are analyzed and employed to increase the bandwidth of proposed antenna: the insertion of a parasitic elements and a rectangular slit in the displaced ground plane. For this, key issues are presented as the basic principles of UWB systems, the fundamental theory of antennas and microstrip antennas. The simulations and experimental characterization of constructed antennas are presented, as well as analysis of parameters such as bandwidth and radiation pattern / As antenas de microfita s?o amplamente utilizadas nos sistemas de comunica??o sem fio devido ?s suas caracter?sticas de baixo custo, peso, menor complexidade de constru??o e fabrica??o, al?m de sua versatilidade. Os sistemas UWB surgiram como uma alternativa ?s comunica??es sem fio de curtas dist?ncias por oferecerem maior capacidade e menor distor??o por multipercurso que outros sistemas com a mesma finalidade. Aliando as vantagens das antenas de microfita ?s caracter?sticas do UWB ? poss?vel desenvolver dispositivos cada vez menores e com geometrias diversificadas para operar satisfatoriamente nesses sistemas. Este trabalho tem como objetivo propor alternativas de antenas de microfita para operar em sistemas UWB, na faixa entre 3,1 e 10,6 GHz, com patch em anel circular. S?o empregadas e analisadas algumas t?cnicas para aumentar a largura de banda das antenas propostas: a inser??o de elementos parasitas e de uma fenda retangular no plano terra deslocado. Para isto, s?o apresentados temas fundamentais como os princ?pios b?sicos dos sistemas UWB, a teoria fundamental de antenas e antenas de microfita. S?o apresentadas as simula??es e caracteriza??es experimentais das antenas constru?das, bem como uma an?lise de par?metros como a largura de banda e o diagrama de radia??o

Abstract In this thesis, bandwidth (BW) enhanced antennas for mobile terminals and multilayer ceramic packages are presented. The thesis is divided into two parts. In the first part, electrically frequency-tunable mobile terminal antennas have been studied. The first three antennas presented were of a dual-band planar inverted-F type (PIFA) and were tuned to operate in frequency bands appropriate to the GSM850 (824–894 MHz), GSM900 (880–960 MHz), GSM1800 (1710–1880 MHz), GSM1900 (1850–1990 MHz) and UMTS (1920–2170 MHz) cellular telecommunication standards with RF PIN diode switches. The first antenna utilized a frequency-tuning method developed in this thesis. The method was based on an integration of the tuning circuitry into the antenna. The tuning of the second antenna was based on a switchable parasitic antenna element. By combining the two frequency-tuning approaches, a third PIFA could be switched to operate in eight frequency bands. The planar monopole antennas researched were varactor-tunable for digital television signal reception (470–702 MHz) and RF PIN diode switchable dual-band antenna for operation at four cellular bands. The key advantage of the former antenna was a compact size (0.7 cm3), while for the latter one, a tuning circuit was implemented without using separate DC wiring for controlling the switch component. The second part of the thesis is devoted to multilayer ceramic package integrated microwave antennas. In the beginning, the use of a laser micro-machined embedded air cavity was proposed to enable antenna size to impedance bandwidth (BW) trade-off for a microwave microstrip in a multilayer monolithic ceramic media. It was shown that the BW of a 10 GHz antenna fabricated on a low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) substrate could be doubled with this technique. Next, the implementation of a compact surface mountable LTCC antenna package operating near 10 GHz was described. The package was composed of a BW optimized stacked patch microstrip antenna and a wide-band vertical ball grid array (BGA)-via interconnection. Along with the electrical performance optimization, an accurate circuit model describing the antenna structure was presented. Finally, the use of low-sintering temperature non-linear dielectric Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) thick films was demonstrated in a folded slot antenna operating at 3 GHz and frequency-tuned with an integrated BST varactor.