This dissertation presents a detailed investigation on the development of a quasi Yagi antenna with end fire radiation at 2.4 GHz (ISM band) over a metal reflector. Realization of an end fire radiator on top of a metal ground is very difficult because the reflected waves and image currents from the ground degrade the frequency bandwidth and steer the radiation pattern in the broadside direction. This destructive interference is reduced in this research through two quasi Yagi-ground configurations. The first arrangement utilizes a substrate of suitable thickness (7.5mm-0.19 ?g) to displace the ground away from the antenna. The second design implements a high impedance surface (HIS) as ground plane for the antenna. The preferred HIS is the Jerusalem Cross Frequency Selective Surface (JC-FSS) because of its compact size, numerous parameters for tuning and frequency stability in the operating band for a large angular spectrum of TE and TM polarized incident waves. In this work a new parameter is added to the model used for the derivation of the JC-FSS which accounts for the substrate of the antenna lying on top of the FSS, this addition allows for a smaller cell grid. The results for the quasi Yagi antenna over the 7.5mm grounded slab presented an operational bandwidth of 190 MHz with 40°; of beam steering in the end fire direction while the quasi Yagi over the JC-FSS offered 260 MHz of functional bandwidth and 54° of beam steering towards the end fire direction. In addition, the quasi Yagi design over the JC-FSS decreases the combined profile (antenna/backing structure) by 33% in relation to the 7.5mm grounded slab. This dissertation combines for the first time a quasi Yagi antenna with a JC-FSS to achieve end fire radiation in the presence of a ground metal.

A novel approach to miniaturizing an 802.11b WLAN card using folded-flex ultra-thin substrates is presented. A 73 percent reduction in size was realized using hybrid circuits on FR4 and polyimide. There is even more potential for further reduction if more copper layers are used. The miniaturized 802.11b WLAN cards were used to design 802.11b wireless sensor nodes. A research test-bed was setup to study how 802.11b networked sensor nodes could operate in the field. There are many applications for such sensor networks like habitat monitoring, object tracking, seismic detection, military surveillance, or fire detection to name a few. This investigation focuses on the requirements, design, and performance of a miniaturized 802.11b wireless LAN sensor node that is reliable, can be deployed in large-scale, and has the endurance long-lived for surveillance applications. An aperture coupled microstrip antenna is investigated for 2.44 GHz wireless local area networks (WLAN) which has the advantages of being low-profile and compact. The most important parameters for antenna optimization have been determined through extensive simulation using Ansoft's HFSS and experimental verification. As a result, an omnidirectional antenna with a size of 36.2 mm x 32 mm x 4.75 mm has been realized using Rogers 5880 duroid (permittivity = 2.20 ; loss tangent = 0.0004) with 4.4 dBi of gain, > 80 MHz, and a return loss > -32 dB. These types of performance characteristics make the antenna highly desirable for both 802.11b and Bluetooth applications.

Theory, design, fabrication and characterization of on-chip optical beam steering systems are presented in this dissertation. Silicon photonics is being considered for integration with conventional CMOS technology for large-band width and low loss on and off-chip communications. We choose silicon nanomembrane, or silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates for implementation of large-angle and agile beam steeres. While working on the targeted device, we contributed to the theory, modeling, engineering and implementation of different building blocks. Multimode-interference couplers (MMIs) constitute important parts of this dissertation. These devices are commonly used as on-chip beam splitters, optical switches and on-chip static phase shifters. The MMIs’ principles of operation are suited in more details and design rules are derived for the first time. MMI based beam splitters with number of outputs as large as 12 are fabricated and tested on SOI wafers. Traditionally, MMIs devices were designed by means of computationally expensive numerical simulations. Numerically and experimentally, we show that our analytical design rules make design of MMIs with low insertion loss and highly uniform outputs possible without additional optimization processes. Optical phased arrays include phase shifter blocks. In the first prototype, we use micro-heaters for tuning the optical phase. The bread-loafing effect, which is generally considered an undeniable phenomenon in the silicon industry, is engineered to realize a mechanical structure to efficiently direct heat toward the silicon waveguides. We also investigate slow light photonic crystal based delay lines to be used as phase shifters. An important drawback of such devices is the low coupling efficiency between slow-light photonic crystal waveguides and fast light strip waveguides. We numerically and experimentally investigate the coupling efficiency, and show for the first time that a few-period long fast-light photonic crystal waveguide without any group index tapering suffices for efficient coupling. The prototype is fabricated, packaged and tested and optical beam steering angle over ±30degrees is demonstrated. Finally, preliminary investigations for 3D implementation of the beam steerer system are presented to clarify the approaches to take for future works. / text

M.Ing. / This study considers improving the azimuth beam steering resolution of the circular Switched Parasitic Array (SPA) antennas (made up of dipoles) by a factor of two or more. In circular SPA antennas, beam steering is conventionally achieved by open-circuiting and shortcircuiting different parasitic elements and usually only one parasitic element is open-circuited at a time. However, such an approach results in low beam steering resolutions especially for the SPA antennas with few parasitic elements. In order to increase the azimuth beam steering resolution for the circular SPA antennas, two beam steering methods are proposed in this research work. In the first method, parasitic elements are open-circuited and short-circuited based on different combinations of the parasitic elements and the possible switch states. The proposed method was first validated by simulation tests using the MATLAB tool and WIPL-D. A prototype of the circular SPA antenna consisting of five elements was then implemented. It is noted that the simulation and measurement results match very well at 2.4 GHz. In order to have at least two combinations (from the first method) with almost similar gain and return loss, another simpler beam steering method was developed. The latter method is based on simultaneously open-circuiting either two or three neighbouring parasitic elements. The performance of the second method was studied through simulations using the circular SPA antenna geometries consisting of five, seven and nine elements. These geometries were first optimized (for gain and input impedance) and then modelled using WIPL-D. It was observed that the two methods double the azimuth beam steering resolution of the circular SPA antennas when compared to the conventional beam steering approaches of open-circuiting one parasitic element at a time. Variations in the structural parameters of the five elements circular SPA antenna at 2.4GHz were also investigated. In this procedure, the effects of variations (also considered as random errors) in the structural parameters (or antenna dimensions) on the performance of the SPA antennas were examined. Firstly, variations in each structural parameter were modelled with other structural parameters fixed as per specifications. Thereafter, effects of combined errors were also investigated. The simulation results demonstrated that variations in the structural parameter can either increase or decrease the gain and input impedance of the SPA antenna depending on the given specifications. The gain and input impedance sensitivities per variations in each structural parameter were computed to determine the degree at which the gain and input impedance can vary for a predefined change (error) in the structural parameter.

Thesis (PhD (Electrical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 / This dissertation presents a concept for a compact, low-profile, integrated solar panel antenna for use on small satellites in low Earth orbit. To date, the integrated solar panel antenna design approach has primarily been, patch (transparent or non-transparent) and slot radiators. The design approach presented here is proposed as an alternative to existing designs. A prototype, comprising of an optically transparent rectangular dielectric resonator was constructed and can be mounted on top of a solar panel of a Cube Satellite. The ceramic glass, LASF35 is characterised by its excellent transmittance and was used to realise an antenna which does not compete with solar panels for surface area. Currently, no closed-form solution for the resonant frequency and Q-factor of a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna exists and as a first-order solution the dielectric waveguide model was used to derive the geometrical dimensions of the dielectric resonator antenna. The result obtained with the dielectric waveguide model is compared with several numerical methods such as the method of moments, finite integration technique, radar cross-section technique, characteristic mode analysis and finally with measurements. This verification approach was taken to give insight into the resonant modes and modal behaviour of the antenna. The interaction between antenna and a triple-junction gallium arsenide solar cell is presented demonstrating a loss in solar efficiency of 15.3%. A single rectangular dielectric resonator antenna mounted on a ground plane demonstrated a gain of 4.2 dBi and 5.7 dBi with and without the solar cell respectively. A dielectric resonator antenna array with a back-to-back Yagi-Uda topology is proposed, designed and evaluated. The main beam of this array can be steered can steer its beam ensuring a constant flux density at a satellite ground station. This isoflux gain profile is formed by the envelope of the steered beams which are controlled using a single digital phase shifter. The array achieved a beam-steering limit of ±66° with a measured maximum gain of 11.4 dBi. The outcome of this research is to realise a single component with dual functionality satisfying the cost, size and weight requirements of small satellites by optimally utilising the surface area of the solar panels.

<p>Optical beam steering is of significant importance for various emerging applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR), free space optical communication, and holographic display. However, the development of schemes for dynamic spatio-temporal beam steering has been limited in the past. A previous study achieved dynamic and continuous angular beam steering of isolated ultrashort pulses from a mode-locked laser by using a passive metasurface emulating a diffraction grating followed by a lens. In this thesis, we experimentally demonstrate dynamic spatio-temporal steering of high repetition rate pulse trains using a spatial array of frequency combs with a uniform gradient in their carrier-envelope offsets. To accomplish this, we leverage the capabilities of a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA), which is a side-entrance Fabry-Perot etalon, and employ successive spatial Fourier transforms facilitated by a 4f optical lens system. Our experimental results successfully demonstrate the periodic scanning of ultrashort pulse trains generated from an electro-optic comb at a repetition rate of ~10 GHz. The scanning occurs in discrete steps of ~115 μm and ~20 ps in the spatial and temporal domains, respectively.</p>

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Liquid crystal (LC) materials have been widely applied in electro-optical devices, among which display is the most successful playground and numerous new applications in photonic areas (such as laser beam steering devices) are also emerging. To well guide the device design for optimum performance, accurate modeling is of prior and practical importance. Generally, the modeling of LC devices includes two parts in sequence: accurate LC molecule deformation extraction under external electric fields and optical calculation thereafter for the corresponding electro-optical behaviors. In this dissertation, first, hybrid finite element method and finite difference method are developed to minimize the free energy of the LC systems. In this part of study, with computer-aided derivation, the full forms of the LC free energy equations without any simplification can be obtained. Besides, Galerkin's method and weak form technique are further introduced to successfully degrade the high order nonlinear derivative terms associated with the free energy equations into ones that can be treated by first order interpolation functions for high accuracy. The developed modeling methods for LC deformation are further employed to study display structures, such as 2D and 3D in-plane switching LC cells, and provides accurate results. Followed is the optical modeling using extended Jones matrix and beam propagation method to calculate the electro-optical performances of different devices, according to their amplitude modulation property or diffractive one. The developed methods are further taken to assist the understanding, development, and optimization of the display and photonic devices. For their application in the display area, sunlight readable transflective LCDs for mobile devices and the related optical films for wide viewing angle are developed and studied. New cell structure using vertically aligned liquid crystal mode is developed and studied to obtain a single cell gap, high light efficiency transflective LCD that can be driven by one gray scale control circuit for both transmissive and reflective modes. And employing an internal wire grid polarizer into a fringe field switching cell produces a single cell gap and wide viewing angle display with workable reflective mode under merely two linear polarizers. To solve the limited viewing angle of conventional circular polarizers, Poincare sphere as an effective tool is taken to trace and understand the polarization change of the incident light throughout the whole LC system. This study further guides the design of high performance circular polarizers that can consist of purely uniaxial plates or a combination of uniaxial and biaxial plates. The developed circular polarizers greatly enhance the viewing angle of transflective LCDs. Especially, the circular polarizer design using a biaxial film can even provide comparable wide viewing angle performance for the same vertically aligned cell as it is used between merely two linear polarizers, while using circular polarizers can greatly boost the display brightness. As for the beam steering device modeling, the developed LC deformation method is taken to accurately calculate the associated LC director distribution in the spatial light modulator, while beam propagation method and Fourier transformation technique are combined to calculate the near and far fields from such devices. The modeling helps to better understand the origins and formations of the disclinations associated with the fringe fields, which further result in reduced steering efficiency and output asymmetric polarizations between positive and negative diffractions. Optimization in both voltage profile and driving methods is conducted to well tune the LC deformation under strong fringe fields and improve the light efficiency.

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