Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) is a well-known and widely used signal processing method in airborne and spaceborne radars. In airborne radar and GMTI literature, many radar designs and signal processing techniques have been developed to increase the detection and estimation performance under heavy interference conditions. The motion of the aircraft on which the radar is mounted, high altitudes and ranges, targets with low radar cross sections and slowly moving targets complicates the problem of localization and observation of moving targets on a huge area of interest. In order to overcome these problems, engineers developed more complex radar hardwares with many receiver channels and signal processing algorithms. Multi-channel receivers provide adaptive digital beam-forming and adaptive Doppler processing capabilities. However, designing a cost efficient and light multi-channel receiver and a signal processing unit, which can handle a huge amount of received data from multi channels, is a difficult task to accomplish. Therefore, this thesis aims to propose non-adaptive antenna beams to reduce the number of channels to two in GMTI processing. This reduction yields a simplification both in receiver structure and signal processing unit. The measure of excellence of these propositions will be the ability to detect slowly moving targets with nearly optimum performance.

Nanoscale communication is appealing domain in nanotechnology. There are many existing nanoscale communication methods. In addition to these, novel techniques can be derived depending on the naturally existing phenomena such as molecular communication. It uses molecules as an information carrier such as molecular motors, pheromones and neurotransmitters for neuro-spike communication. Among them, neuro-spike communication is a vastly unexplored area. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to accurately investigate it by obtaining a realistic physical channel model. This model can be exploited in different disciplines. Furthermore, the model can help designing novel artificial nanoscale communication paradigms. The modeled channel is analyzed regarding the error probability of detecting spikes depending on channel parameters. Moreover, channel delay is characterized and information theoretical analysis of packet release mechanism in the channel is performed. The modeled channel is extended to multi-input single output terminal. In this case, input neurons can simultaneously send information through the same synapse leading to interference. However, there is an interference repressing technique in these synapses called automatic gain control. It decreases the interference level observed on weaker signal. The first aim for this case is to define the interference channel at synapse having automatic gain control. The second aim is to analyze the achievable rate region of this channel. The analysis shows that gain control mechanism prevents the decrease in achievable rate region because of the weaker signal. Moreover, power, firing rate and number of stronger inputs do not affect the achievable rate region.

In practice, a communication system works with finite blocklength codes because of the delay constraints and the information-theoretic bounds which are proposed for finite blocklength systems can be exploited to determine the performance of a designed system. In this thesis, achievable rates for given average error probabilities are considered for finite blocklength systems. Although classical bounds can be used to upper bound the error probability, these bounds require the optimization of auxiliary variables. In this work, a bound which is called the dependence testing (DT) bound that is free of any auxiliary variables is exploited. The DT bound is evaluated by introducing a normal approximation to the information density. Simulations carried out both for the Gaussian and discrete input alphabets show the proposed approximation enables very good prediction of the achievable rates. The proposed approximation is also used to calculate the average error probability for block fading channels. Simulations performed for Rayleigh block fading channels demonstrate that the total blocklength of the system in addition to the number of fading blocks should be accounted for especially when the number of fading blocks is large. A power allocation problem in block fading channels when the channel state information is available to the transmitting side is investigated in the final part of this work. The DT bound is optimized for a given channel state vector by allocating different power levels to each fading block by exploiting short-term power allocation. A simple power allocation algorithm is proposed which comes out with very similar results compared with the analytically computed values.

This thesis reports the analysis of the rectangular shaped defected ground structure (RS-DGS) and the application of the structure on some microwave devices. DGS is analyzed in terms of its superior properties, which enables the designers to easily realize many kind of microwave devices which are impossible to achieve with the standard applications. Within the scope of this thesis, the focus is on the rectangular shaped DGS and its characteristic properties. The basic slow wave and high impedance characteristics are utilized in the design of some microwave devices. The design is carried on at the two different frequency bands: X-band and Ka band, centering at 10 GHz and 35 GHz, respectively. Finally, using the high impedance property and the coupling between the defects, a wide band 1 : 4 beam forming network is designed and implemented at 10 GHz.

In modern broadband microwave applications, receivers are very sensitive to interference signals which can come from the system itself or from hostile emitters. Electronically tunable bandstop filters can be used to eliminate these interference signals with adaptation to changing frequency conditions. In this thesis, electronically tunable bandstop filter design techniques are investigated for microwave frequencies. The aim is to find filter topologies which allow narrowband bandstop or &lsquo / notch&rsquo / filter designs with low-Q resonators and with tuning capability. Tunability will be provided by the use of electronically tunable capacitors, specifically varactor diodes. For this purpose, firstly direct bandstop filter techniques are investigated and their performances are analyzed. Then phase cancellation approach, which enables high quality bandstop filter design with lossy circuit elements, is introduced and analyzed. Lastly, a novel notch filter design technique called as all-pass filter approach is introduced. This approach allows a systematic design method and enables to design very good tunable notch filter characteristics with low-Q resonators. Three filter topologies using this approach are given and their performances are analyzed. Also prototype tunable notch filters operating in X-Band are designed and implemented by using these three topologies.

Series-fed printed slot antenna arrays excited by microstrip lines are low profile, easy to manufacture, low cost structures that found use in applications that doesn&rsquo / t require high power levels with having advantage of easy integration with microwave front-end circuitry. In this thesis, design and analysis of microstrip line fed slot antenna arrays are investigated. First an equivalent circuit model that ignores mutual coupling effects between slots is studied. A 6-element array is designed by using this equivalent circuit model. From the measurement and electromagnetic simulation results of this array, it is concluded that mutual coupling effects should be considered in order to achieve a successful design that meets the design specifications related to the main beam direction and sidelobe levels of the antenna. Next, an improved equivalent circuit model proposed for stripline fed slot antenna arrays is studied. It is observed that, the mutual coupling effects are incorporated into the equivalent model through the utilization of active impedance concept. Finally, the design equations proposed in the improved equivalent circuit model are derived for the microstrip line fed slot antenna array structure. To demonstrate the validity and the accuracy of the derived design equations, results obtained by the proposed analysis method are compared with simulation and measurement results. It is concluded that the proposed method successfully predicts the radiation pattern of the array by including the mutual coupling effects.

Dual band (K and Ka) electronically scanning reflectarray with RF MEMS switches is designed, implemented and measured. Unit cell of the reflect array is composed of conductor backed split-ring elements. In order to steer the beam, the phase of the incident circularly polarized wave is controlled by RF MEMS switches that modify the angular orientation of split-rings individually. Reflectarray is designed using unit cell approach with periodic boundary conditions. The antenna is fabricated by using surface micromachining process developed in METU MEMS Center. Radiation patterns of the antenna are measured and compared with the simulations. It has been shown that the reflectarray is capable of beam switching to 35&deg / in Ka band, 24&deg / in K band.

In this thesis study, an overview of MIMO radar is presented. The differences in radar cross section, channel and received signal models in different MIMO radar configurations are examined. The performance improvements that can be achieved by the use of waveform diversity in coherent MIMO radar and by the use of angular diversity in statistical MIMO radar are investigated. The optimal detector under Neyman-Pearson criterion for Coherent MIMO radar when the interfering signal is white Gaussian noise is developed. Detection performance of phased array radar, coherent MIMO radar and Statistical MIMO radar are compared through numerical simulations. A detector for MIMO radar that contains the space time codes explicitly is also examined.

In this thesis, an Experimental Radar System is designed and constructed for use in experimental radar studies such as clutter measurement and target detection, both in the laboratory and outdoor. COTS laboratory equipments are utilized as hardware elements of the radar and MATLAB is used as signal processing and user interface software tool. Vector signal generator (as transmitter), spectrum analyzer with vector signal analysis (as receiver), a high power amplifier, a low noise amplifier, horn antennas and a computer are the hardware units of the system. Various transmit signals are generated and pulse Doppler processing is performed at the receiver side. The system is controlled through the user interface which runs on a PC.

The aim of this thesis is to improve the operational performance of the communication antennas mounted on complex platforms such as aircrafts and warships by arranging placements of these antennas. Towards this aim, primarily, in order to gain insight on the influence of geometrically simple structures composing the platform on antenna performance, a quarter wavelength monopole antenna placed at the center of a finite square ground plane is studied by using uniform Geometrical Theory of Diffraction (GTD). Besides, the change of far field radiation pattern and complex diffraction functions due to the variation of the width of a square ground plane is examined. Secondly, electromagnetic analysis of two Ultra High Frequency (UHF) antennas mounted on geometrically simple structures composing simplified F-4 aircraft is carried out by using transient solver of Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave Studio&reg / (MWS), in order to conceive the influence of each structure on antenna performance. Then, electromagnetic analysis of these antennas mounted on simplified and original F-4 aircrafts is performed, in order to determine the optimal location of the lower UHF antenna (newly installed antenna) for the operational performance of this antenna to be optimum in terms of electromagnetic coupling and far field radiation pattern. Finally, electromagnetic analysis of the communication antennas mounted on a warship is performed by using transient solver of CST MWS&reg / , in order to determine the optimal locations of these antennas for the operational performance of these antennas to be optimum in terms of electromagnetic coupling and far field radiation pattern.