International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Given the small size of hit-to-kill interceptor test vehicles currently under development, volumetric limitations mandate using the experimental vehicle's telemetry system during vehicle ground level acceptance and environmental testing to gather performance data, in addition to the primary function of successfully gathering and transmitting data during the test flight. In small, lightweight test interceptors, volume and mass become major telemetry system design considerations. In this paper we describe a system engineering approach to determine the key requirements and calculate some of the critical design parameters necessary for the successful design and development of a high data rate wide band FM Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) airborne telemetry system.

The main purpose of this thesis is to estimate the direct path in dense multipath Ultra Wide-Band (UWB) environment. The time-of-arrival (ToA) estimation algorithm used is based on Generalized Maximum-Likelihood (GML) algorithm. Nevertheless, GML algorithm is so time-consuming that the results usually take a very long period of time, and sometimes fail to converge. Hence, the schemes that would improve the algorithm are investigated. In the schemes, the search was executed in sequential form. Two threshold parameters are to be determined¡Xone is about the arrival time of the estimation path while the other is the fading amplitude of the estimation path. The thresholds are determined in order to terminate the sequential algorithm. The determination of thresholds is based on error analysis, including the probability of error and root-mean-square error. The analysis of the probability of error is subject to the probability of false alarm and the probability of miss. However, a trade-off problem on the probability of false alarm and the probability of miss exists in the process of determining thresholds. The thresholds are determined according to the requirement of the probability of error. We propose an improvement scheme for determining the two thresholds. In the proposed scheme, candidate pairs are evaluated within an appropriate range. The root-mean-square error value for each pair of thresholds is calculated. The smallest error, corresponding to the desired thresholds, is chosen for use in ToA estimation. From the simulation results, it is seen that, when SNR falls between -4dB and 16dB, the improvement proposed scheme results has the smaller estimation error.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Behrooz Mirafzal / The rise of Wide Band Gap (WBG) devices has brought excitement in the field of Power converters. The WBG based converter can operate at the very high frequency and temperature making them ideal to use in harsh environments. The commercialization of WBG devices such as SiC and GaN MOSFETs has made it interesting for power engineering professionals all over the world. The use of WBG devices capable of operating at high switching frequencies reduces the overall system size dramatically with added benefit of improved power quality at high temperature. The main goal of this thesis is to design and test an AC-DC converter based on a SiC power module. The designed rectifier can be considered an active rectifier equipped with a controller to constantly provide feedback for modification of switching signals to get the desired output voltage. The designed active rectifier converts the varying frequency input power supply into rectified DC voltage while keeping the power factor of the system to unity. This thesis covers elementary information on power supply design, switching schemes and design of the controller. System arrangement will provide more light on the use of Six Channel MOSFET Gate Driver from CREE with the overall experimental setup. The experimental analysis will summarize the behavior of the system where information on achieved rectification, effect on the line currents at the generator and concluding power factor representation is described.

This thesis proposes a control system to widen the bandwidth of piezoelectric transducers (PZTs) for vibration energy harvesting while extracting maximum power. A straightforward complex conjugate match achieves maximum power transfer only at a single frequency while requiring an impractically large inductance. The proposed system intends to address these problems. It incorporates a bi-directional DC/DC converter with feed-forward control to achieve a complex conjugate match over a wide range of frequencies.  Analysis of the proposed system and simulation results are presented to verify validity of the proposed method. / Master of Science

No description available.

Yes / A compact dielectric resonator antenna for ultra-wideband vehicular communication applications is proposed. Two cylindrical dielectric resonators are asymmetrically located with respect to the center of an offset rectangular coupling aperture, through which they are fed. Optimizing the design parameters results in an impedance bandwidth of 21%, covering the range from 5.9 to 7.32 GHz in the lower-band and a 53% relative bandwidth from 8.72 to 15 GHz in the upper-band. The maximum achieved gain is 12 dBi. Design details of the proposed antenna and the results of both simulations and experiment are presented and discussed.

Ternary III-nitride alloys have enabled the design of various devices ranging from optoelectronics to power electronics due to their tunable band gap. BxGa1-xN is a wide band gap semiconductor with applications in detecting devices, power electronics and light-emitting diodes. The band gap can be modulated by changing the Boron concentration. It can be grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition as a mixed thin film of wurtzite and zincblende structures. In this work, we investigate the structural and electronic properties of BxGa1-xN (x<0.2) by first-principles calculations for both the wurtzite and zincblende phases. The formation energies of Si and Mg impurities and of a Ga vacancy are also calculated. We find that the wurtzite structure is favored over the zincblende structure. Furthermore, the Si and Mg impurities have relatively low formation energies in their neutral state, which indicates compatibility with BxGa1-xN, while a Ga vacancy has very high formation energy, hence being less likely to form spontaneously. Moreover, in the charged states, the formation energy of Mg is reasonably low for most values of the Fermi level, while the formation energy of Si depends linearly on the Fermi level, indicating challenges in achieving n-type conductivity. For a Ga vacancy in a triple acceptor state, the formation energy is reasonably low close to the conduction band, therefore, Ga vacancies interfere with n-type conductivity.

A 3D Finite Element Boundary Integral technique (FE-BI) using mixed-order tangential vector finite elements (TVFE?s) is presented. This technique is used to design two wide band antennas and an ultra wideband (UWB) antenna array. Tetrahedral elements are used for domain discretization because they offer higher flexibility when simulating complex structures. A set of hierarchical mixed-order TVFE?s up to and including order 2.5 is implemented. Hierarchical mixed-order TVFE?s accurately simulate regions with high and low field variations. They also guarantee tangential field continuity across element boundaries and suppress spurious modes. The efficacy of the technique has been tested on two different wide band antennas and an UWB array. The first antenna is designed for automotive applications and covers GPS, GSM, XM, and PCS bands (0.8?3.35 GHz). The second antenna is a double sided rounded bowtie antenna (DSRBA) for UWB communication (3.1-10.6 GHz). The third design is a DSRBA array. For validation purposes, the antennas are also simulated using a commercially available high frequency electromagnetic simulation software, HFSS. Results regarding antenna parameters such as return loss, radiation pattern, and gain are also given.

No description available.

The rise of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is causing more terrestrial electromagnetic interference in the important L- and X-band frequencies which are crucial for astronomical observations. This thesis introduces reflectarray design which can serve as a basis for an interference mitigation solution for radio telescopes. In the envisioned application, When the reflectarray is placed around the circumference of an existing radio telescope, it can drive a null into the radio telescopes radiation pattern sidelobe distribution. Since the reflectarray only occupies a small potion of the rim of the paraboloidal main reflector, its presence does not significantly effect the main lobe peak gain. Since Iridium and Starlink are the target mega-constellations, the reflectarray must be dual band. To cover the operational bandwidths of these constellations, the target bandwidth in the L-band (Iridium) is 0.7%, and that in the X-band (Starlink) is 17.1%. This makes the design of the reflectarray challenging as the frequencies are widely separated and the bandwidth in the X-band is wide The work of this thesis marks a first step in this effort. It includes a reflectarray design containing a multi-layer stack consisting of: (1) a grounded substrate, (2) an X-band slot loaded unit cell geometry, (3) a dielectric superstrate, and (4) an L-band layer containing crossed dipoles. The dual band reflectarray is dual linearly polarized to maintain symmetric response. The reflectarray is designed and simulated using full-wave solvers. The results show that the reflectarray designs are capable of pattern shaping at both bands and operate across the required bandwidths. This architecture could serve as a basis for future reflectarrays capable of nulling satellite interference from mega-constellations in observatory applications in the future. / Master of Science / The signal clarity issues stemming from the increasing number of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), particularly in the vital L- and X-band frequencies essential for global communications and radio astronomy, are the motivation of this thesis. The endeavor concentrates on designing a dual-band dual-polarized reflectarray antenna which may ultimately be used to help mitigate interference in these bands in radio telescopes. The work is focused on the frequency ranges utilized by the major satellite networks Iridium and Starlink, which operate within the L-band (1616-1626.5 MHz) and X-band (10.7-12.7 GHz). Recognizing the significance of these frequencies for global communication and also to radio astronomy, the reflectarray is designed to contribute to a an interference mitigation system which would ultimately allow for coexistence between radio telescopes and communications systems satellites. Targeting bandwidth achievements of 0.7% for the L-band and 17.1% for the X-band, the focus is on nulling interference arising across these frequency bands and thereby increasing the sensitivity of the radio telescope operating amongst these mega-constellations. The thesis documents a multilayered reflectarray antenna, containing a wide-band X-band layer of slot antennas on one layer and an L-band superstrate layer containing crossed dipoles at another, both of which utilize dual linear polarization for symmetric operation. The completed reflectarray can operate simultaneously in both bands. It has been shown in the two papers cited by {ellingson2021sidelobe,budhu2024design} that reflectarrays placed along the rim of radio telescopes main reflector can be used to drive nulls in the sidelobe envelope of its radiation pattern thereby nulling incoming interference. The antenna design of this thesis suggests a possible candidate for these interference mitigation systems where both bands are targeted.