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Thesis (MScEng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: An investigation into the cause of undesired sidelobes in the 3D radiation pattern of slotted waveguide arrays is conducted. It is hypothesized that the cross-polarization of the antenna is at fault, along with the possibility that an error is made when designing a linear array. In investigating and finding a solution to the problem, the “Z-slot ” is introduced in conjunction with polarizer plates. The base components are used by a custom optimization algorithm to design reference and solution antennas. Results of the antennas are then compared to ascertain the cause and possible solutions for the unwanted sidelobes. The generic nature of the process may be used to characterize other arbitrary aperture configurations and to design larger antennas. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ‘n Ondersoek om die oorsaak van ongewensde sylobbe in die 3D uitstraalpatroon van golfleier-antennas vas te stel. Die hipotese is dat die probleem ontstaan uit die kruis-polarisasie van die antenna, tesame met ‘n verkeerdelikke aanname dat die opstelling liniêr is. Die “Z-Gleuf” tesame met polariseringsplate word voorgestel as hulpmiddel om die moontlikke oorsake te ondersoek. ‘n Gespesialiseerde optime erings-algoritme benut hierdie basiskomponente om beide verwysings- en oplossing-antennas te ontwerp. Resultate van die ontwerpde antennas word dan vergelyk om die oorsaak van die ongewensde sylobbe te vas te stel. Die generiese aard van die proses kan toegepas word op enige gleuf-konfigurasie en om groter antennas mee te ontwerp.

Afin de répondre à la demande croissante de nouveaux services, les objets que nous utilisons au quotidien (les smartphones, les voitures, les avions, etc.) tendent à intégrer de plus en plus de systèmes radio tandis que l’espace disponible pour l’intégration de ces éléments est de plus en plus réduit. Ces systèmes radio nécessitent l’utilisation de plusieurs antennes devant répondre à des critères de compacité, d’isolation, de coût, etc. À titre d’illustration, un smartphone contient plusieurs antennes pour assurer des fonctions telles que la téléphonie, la navigation, la connexion à internet par WiFi, les liaisons Bluetooth, la technologie NFC (Near-Field Communications) et ce nombre tend à s’accroitre considérablement avec l’émergence de nouveaux services. Le même phénomène se retrouve également au niveau des plateformes aéroportées où des fonctions telles que la communication, la navigation, le radar, etc. sont utilisées. Cela conduit donc à la nécessité de réduire le nombre d’antennes en regroupant par exemple plusieurs fonctions au sein d’une même et unique antenne. Dans de précédents travaux de recherches, J. Euzière a démontré la possibilité de combiner une fonction radar et une seconde fonction (ici de communication) en utilisant un réseau de 16 monopoles initialement dédié au seul radar, grâce au Time Modulated Array (TMA). De cette façon, les deux fonctions utilisaient la même fréquence et étaient alimentées par une seule source. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de proposer une solution d’antenne multifonction pour radar et communication encore plus compacte (constituée d’une seule antenne). L’idée est de partir d’une solution antennaire déjà existante et d’y apporter les modifications nécessaires à l’ajout d’une seconde fonction, sans pour autant augmenter la surface de l’antenne ni la complexité du système. / In order to respond to the increasingly demand of new services, the objects we use on a daily basis (such as mobile phones, cars, airplanes etc.), tend to integrate more and more radio systems while the space available is limited. These radio systems require the use of many antennas that must meet multiple requirements such as compactness, isolation, costs, etc. A smart-phone, for example, contains several antennas for global navigation satellite system (GNSS), WiFi, TV, FM radio, Bluetooth, near-field communications (NFC) and the number is expected to increase as new systems are added. Another example is in airborne platforms where multiple functions such as communication, navigation, radar, electronic warfare are used. This leads to the need of reducing the number of associated antennas by regrouping several radio functions into a single antenna. However, combining the functionality of several antennas into one shared radiating element while maintaining the functionality of the various radio systems presents a great challenge. During its Ph.D, J. Euzière demonstrated the possibility to combine a radar function and a secondary function from a 16-monopole array originally dedicated to radar operation by using Time Modulated Array (TMA) technique. By this way, the two functions were operating at the same frequency and the system was powered by a single source.The main objective of this thesis is to propose a more compact antenna (a single antenna) dedicated to radar and communication operations instead of using antenna array as J. Euzière did it. The idea is to start from an existing antenna solution and make the necessary modifications to add a second function without adding additional surface and complexity. As we are interested in radar applications, we will choose a directive antenna: a horn antenna. The goal is then to study the possibility to modify the radiation pattern of the horn antenna through controllable elements (slots) and to transmit a direct modulated signal at the antenna level for the communication function. Furthermore, polarization diversity is an attractive way to increase the isolation between two applications. Thus, this aspect will be taken into account in the design of the antenna solution.

Slotted waveguide array (SWGA) antennas find application in systems which require planarity, low profile, high power handling capabilities such as radars. In this thesis, a planar, low sidelobe, phased array antenna, capable of electronically beam scanning in E-plane is designed, manufactured and measured. In the design, slot characterization is done with HFSS and by measurements, and mutual coupling between slots are calculated analytically. A MATLAB code is developed for the synthesis of the SWGA antenna. Grating lobe problem in the scanning array, which is caused by the slot positions, is solved using baffles on the array. A high power feeding section for the planar array, having an amplitude tapering to get low sidelobes is also designed using a corrugated E-plane sectoral horn. The power divider is designed analytically, and simulated and optimized with HFSS.

An X band dual polarized slotted waveguide antenna array is designed with very high polarization purity for both horizontal and vertical polarizations. Horizontally polarized radiators are designed using a novel non-inclined edge wall slots whereas the vertically polarized slots are implemented using broad wall slots opened on baffled single ridge rectangular waveguides. Electromagnetic model based on an infinite array unit cell approach is introduced to characterize the slots used in the array. 20 by 10 element planar array of these slots is manufactured and radiation fields are measured. The measurement results of this array are in very good accordance with the simulation results. The dual polarized antenna possesses a low sidelobe level of -35 dB and is able to scan a sector of &plusmn / 35 degrees in elevation. It also has a usable bandwidth of 600 MHz.

This thesis deals with the design of an antenna array for the MSPS Radar L band application. The introduction covers a research for a suitable antenna element which can be used as an element of steerable antenna array. The control of the main beam is enabled in the vertical plane. Based on a presented theory, a slotted waveguide antenna array with an omnidirectional radiation in the vertical plane is designed. The operating frequency is set to 1 367.5 MHz. Slotted array achieves 20° width of the main beam in elevation plane. The achieved gain of the array is 9.15 dBi. Further attention of this work is focused on the beam steering that is allowed by diode switching. The last part of the thesis presents manufacturing process of the designed model. The CST Microwave Studio software was used for the antenna array designing process.

The widespread adoption of photonic circuits requires the economics of volume manufacturing offered by integration technology. A Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor compatible silicon material platform is particularly attractive because it leverages the huge investment that has been made in silicon electronics and its high index contrast enables tight confinement of light which decreases component footprint and energy consumption. Nevertheless, there remain challenges to the development of photonic integrated circuits. Although the density of integration is advancing steady and the integration of the principal components – waveguides, optical sources and amplifiers, modulators, and photodetectors – have all been demonstrated, the integration density is low and the device library far from complete. The integration density is low primarily because of the difficulty of confining light in structures small compared to the wavelength which measured in micrometers. The device library is incomplete because of the immaturity of hybridisation on silicon of other materials required by active devices such as III-V semiconductor alloys and ferroelectric oxides and the difficulty of controlling the coupling of light between disparate material platforms. Metamaterials are nanocomposite materials which have optical properties not readily found in Nature that are defined as much by their geometry as their constituent materials. This offers the prospect of the engineering of materials to achieve integrated components with enhanced functionality. Metamaterials are a class of photonic crystals includes subwavelength grating waveguides, which have already provided breakthroughs in component performance yet require a simpler fabrication process compatible with current minimum feature size limitations. The research reported in this PhD thesis advances our understanding of the structure-property relations of key planar light circuit components and the metamaterial engineering of these properties. The analysis and simulation of components featuring structures that are only just subwavelength is complicated and consumes large computer resources especially when a three dimensional analysis of components structured over a scale larger than the wavelength is desired. This obstructs the iterative design-simulate cycle. An abstraction is required that summarises the properties of the metamaterial pertinent to the larger scale while neglecting the microscopic detail. That abstraction is known as homogenisation. It is possible to extend homogenisation from the long-wavelength limit up to the Bragg resonance (band edge). It is found that a metamaterial waveguide is accurately modeled as a continuous medium waveguide provided proper account is taken of the emergent properties of the homogenised metamaterial. A homogenised subwavelength grating waveguide structure behaves as a strongly anisotropic and spatially dispersive material with a c-axis normal to the layers of a one dimensional multi-layer structure (Kronig-Penney) or along the axis of uniformity for a two dimensional photonic crystal in three dimensional structure. Issues with boundary effects in the near Bragg resonance subwavelength are avoided either by ensuring the averaging is over an extensive path parallel to boundary or the sharp boundary is removed by graded structures. A procedure is described that enables the local homogenised index of a graded structure to be determined. These finding are confirmed by simulations and experiments on test circuits composed of Mach-Zehnder interferometers and individual components composed of regular nanostructured waveguide segments with different lengths and widths; and graded adiabatic waveguide tapers. The test chip included Lüneburg micro-lenses, which have application to Fourier optics on a chip. The measured loss of each lens is 0.72 dB. Photonic integrated circuits featuring a network of waveguides, modulators and couplers are important to applications in RF photonics, optical communications and quantum optics. Modal phase error is one of the significant limitations to the scaling of multimode interference coupler port dimension. Multimode interference couplers rely on the Talbot effect and offer the best in-class performance. Anisotropy helps reduce the Talbot length but temporal and spatial dispersion is necessary to control the modal phase error and wavelength dependence of the Talbot length. The Talbot effect in a Kronig-Penny metamaterial is analysed. It is shown that the metamaterial may be engineered to provide a close approximation to the parabolic dispersion relation required by the Talbot effect for perfect imaging. These findings are then applied to the multimode region and access waveguide tapers of a multi-slotted waveguide multimode interference coupler with slots either in the transverse direction or longitudinal direction. A novel polarisation beam splitter exploiting the anisotropy provided by a longitudinally slotted structure is demonstrated by simulation. The thesis describes the design, verification by simulation and layout of a photonic integrated circuit containing metamaterial waveguide test structures. The test and measurement of the fabricated chip and the analysis of the data is described in detail. The experimental results show good agreement with the theory, with the expected errors due to fabrication process limitations. From the Scanning Electron Microscope images and the measurements, it is clear that at the boundary of the minimum feature size limit, the error increases but still the devices can function.