The honey bee is one of the most important crop pollinating insects in the world. Researchers have recently identified a disease that has begun to impact the honey bee population. Colony Collapse Disorder results in the death of many bee colonies every year, but the cause for this remains unknown. Investigating the cause, harmonic radars are being considered to track the foraging patterns of honey bees. This research endeavors to find an optimized waveform for use in tracking foraging bees. Harmonic oscillators were developed for a transmit frequency of 1.2 GHz and various waveforms were tested against the oscillators. Ultimately, the waveform was found to be arbitrary. The amount of power that the harmonic oscillator receives is the determining factor. Given this, a general pulsed waveform can be developed that attempts to provide the maximum possible return for a predetermined maximum range of interest.

Honey bees are some of the most important pollinators for agriculture in the world and are pivotal to the health of worldwide ecosystems. Like all insects, bees struggle with exposure to parasites, diseases, and other environmental factors that can negatively affect the overall health of the colony. Recently, a new unexplainable phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been wreaking havoc on bee populations worldwide. As a result, a system capable of tracking bees is required to understand the different contributions of chemicals, parasites, etc. to CCD. This research seeks to show data supporting the development of systems for an X-band harmonic radar system. Overall, it was found the harmonic oscillator’s conversion and antenna efficiency were the most important design factors for determining detectability at increased ranges. Therefore, multiple harmonic oscillators were simulated and developed at a fundamental frequency of 5 GHz with these design factors in mind.

This thesis presents various integrated antenna solutions for different types of systems and applications, e.g. wireless sensors, broadband handsets, advanced base stations, MEMS-based reconfigurable front-ends, automotive anti-collision radars, and large area electronics. For wireless sensor applications, a T-matched dipole is proposed and integrated in an electrically small body-worn sensor node. Measurement techniques are developed to characterize the port impedance and radiation properties. Possibilities and limitations of the planar inverted cone antenna (PICA) for small handsets are studied experimentally. Printed slot-type and folded PICAs are demonstrated for UWB handheld terminals. Both monolithic and hybrid integration are applied for electrically steerable array antennas. Compact phase shifters within a traveling wave array antenna architecture, on single layer substrate, is investigated for the first time. Radio frequency MEMS switches are utilized to improve the performance of reconfigurable antennas at higher frequencies. Using monolithic integration, a 20 GHz switched beam antenna based on MEMS switches is implemented and evaluated. Compared to similar work published previously, complete experimental results are here for the first time reported. Moreover, a hybrid approach is used for a 24 GHz switched beam traveling wave array antenna. A MEMS router is fabricated on silicon substrate for switching two array antennas on a LTCC chip. A concept of nano-wire based substrate integrated waveguides (SIW) is proposed for millimeter-wave applications. Antenna prototypes based on this concept are successfully demonstrated for automotive radar applications. W-band body-worn nonlinear harmonic radar reflectors are proposed as a means to improve automotive radar functionality. Passive, semi-passive and active nonlinear reflectors consisting of array antennas and nonlinear circuitry on flex foils are investigated. A new stretchable RF electronics concept for large area electronics is demonstrated. It incorporates liquid metal into microstructured elastic channels. The prototypes exhibit high stretchability, foldability, and twistability, with maintained electrical properties. / wisenet