International Journal of Microwave Science and Technology http://www.hindawi.com The latest articles from Hindawi Publishing Corporation © 2013 , Hindawi Publishing Corporation . All rights reserved. Advanced RF and Analog Integrated Circuits for Fourth Generation Wireless Communications and Beyond Thu, 16 May 2013 09:28:47 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/272070/ Ramesh Pokharel, Leonid Belostotski, Akira Tsuchiya, Ahmed Allam, and Mohammad S. Hashmi Copyright © 2013 Ramesh Pokharel et al. All rights reserved. Rainfall Rate Duration Study for Performance Assessment of Satellite Communication Links Thu, 09 May 2013 11:31:16 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/209067/ The duration of rainfall events as a function of precipitation rate is investigated in this paper. The experimental data used in this study were measured along a rain gauge network with 8 pluviographs located in the Amazon region. The most important point to be highlighted in this study is the evidence of a correlation between rain and fade events durations observed in a 12 GHz satellite link. This result is quite important under the engineering point of view, once it can be used in the design of improvement techniques for low availability satellite systems. Jorge L. Cerqueira and Mauro S. Assis Copyright © 2013 Jorge L. Cerqueira and Mauro S. Assis. All rights reserved. CMOS Ultra-Wideband Low Noise Amplifier Design Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:49:43 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/328406/ This paper presents the design of ultra-wideband low noise amplifier (UWB LNA). The proposed UWB LNA whose bandwidth extends from 2.5 GHz to 16 GHz is designed using a symmetric 3D RF integrated inductor. This UWB LNA has a gain of 11 ± 1.0 dB and a NF less than 3.3 dB. Good input and output impedance matching and good isolation are achieved over the operating frequency band. The proposed UWB LNA is driven from a 1.8 V supply. The UWB LNA is designed and simulated in standard TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS technology process. K. Yousef, H. Jia, R. Pokharel, A. Allam, M. Ragab, H. Kanaya, and K. Yoshida Copyright © 2013 K. Yousef et al. All rights reserved. Downconverting Module Architectures for High Performance Multipixel Cameras Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:06:28 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/586158/ Multipixel cameras represent an emerging topology for arrays receivers, improving speed and accuracy of both security scanning systems and radioastronomical sky surveys by means of a matrix of phased elements. Difficulties in the generation and proper distribution to each pixel of the local oscillator signal still limit their use to frequency ranges below a few GHz or at least seriously affect the complexity of the implementable cameras. This work presents a full comparison between two possible system architectures, alternatively based on LO frequency multiplication or subharmonic mixing strategies, aiming to overcome the aforesaid limitations: design and performance of two compact test vehicles in MMIC technology, both operating in the Q-band frequency range with ultrabroadband IF section, are reported. Diego Palombini, Maciej Jankowski, and Ernesto Limiti Copyright © 2013 Diego Palombini et al. All rights reserved. Performance and Trends in Millimetre-Wave CMOS Oscillators for Emerging Wireless Applications Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:51:28 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/312618/ This paper reports the latest advances on millimeter-wave CMOS voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs). Current state-of-the-art implementations are reviewed, and their performances are compared in terms of phase noise and figure of merit. Low power and low phase noise LC-VCO and ring oscillator designs are analyzed and discussed. Design and performance trends over the last decade are provided and discussed. The paper shows how for the higher range of millimeter-waves (>60 GHz) the performances of ring oscillators become comparable with those of LC-VCOs. Marius Voicu, Domenico Pepe, and Domenico Zito Copyright © 2013 Marius Voicu et al. All rights reserved. A Novel Reconfigurable MB-OFDM UWB LNA Using Programmable Current Reuse Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:08:13 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/924161/ This paper presents a design of a reconfigurable low noise amplifier (LNA) for multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultra wideband (UWB) receivers. The proposed design is divided into three stages; the first one is a common gate (CG) topology to provide the input matching over a wideband. The second stage is a programmable circuit to control the mode of operation. The third stage is a current reuse topology to improve the gain, flatness and consume lower power. The proposed LNA is designed using 0.18 μm CMOS technology. This LNA has been designed to operate in two subbands of MB-OFDM UWB, UWB mode-1 and mode-3, as a single or concurrent mode. The simulation results exhibit the power gain up to 17.35, 18, and 11 dB for mode-1, mode-3, and concurrent mode, respectively. The NF is 3.5, 3.9, and 6.5 and the input return loss is better than −12, −13.57, and −11 dB over mode-1, mode-3, and concurrent mode, respectively. This design consumes 4 mW supplied from 1.2 V. Ahmed Ragheb, Ghazal Fahmy, Iman Ashour, and Abdel Hady Ammar Copyright © 2013 Ahmed Ragheb et al. All rights reserved. Systematic Design Methodology of a Wideband Multibit Continuous-Time Delta-Sigma Modulator Thu, 07 Mar 2013 09:29:19 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/275289/ Systematic design of a low power, wideband and multi-bit continuous-time delta-sigma modulator (CTDSM) is presented. The design methodology is illustrated with a 640 MS/s, 20 MHz signal bandwidth 4th order 2-bit CTDMS implemented in 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The implemented design achieves a peak SNDR of 65.7 dB and a high dynamic range of 70 dB while consuming only 19.7 mW from 1.8 V supply. The design achieves a FoM of 0.31 pJ/conv. Direct path compensation is employed for one clock excess loop delay compensation. In the feedforward topology, capacitive summation using the last opamp eliminates extra summation opamp. Awinash Anand, Nischal Koirala, Ramesh K. Pokharel, Haruichi Kanaya, and Keiji Yoshida Copyright © 2013 Awinash Anand et al. All rights reserved. An Inductorless Cascaded Phase-Locked Loop with Pulse Injection Locking Technique in 90 nm CMOS Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:57:02 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/584341/ An inductorless phase-locked loop with subharmonic pulse injection locking was realized (PLL area: 0.11 mm2) by adopting 90 nm Si CMOS technology. The proposed circuit is configured with two cascaded PLLs; one of them is a reference PLL that generates reference signals to the other one from low-frequency external reference signals. The other is a main PLL that generates high-frequency output signals. A high-frequency half-integral subharmonic locking technique was used to decrease the phase noise characteristics. For a 50 MHz input reference signal, without injection locking, the 1 MHz offset phase noise was −88 dBc/Hz at a PLL output frequency of 7.2 GHz (= 144 × 50 MHz); with injection locking, the noise was −101 dBc/Hz (spur level: −31 dBc; power consumption from a 1.0 V power supply: 25 mW). Sang-yeop Lee, Hiroyuki Ito, Shuhei Amakawa, Noboru Ishihara, and Kazuya Masu Copyright © 2013 Sang-yeop Lee et al. All rights reserved. Wideband Lithium Niobate FBAR Filters Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:57:49 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/459767/ Filters based on film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs) are widely used for mobile phone applications, but they can also address wideband aerospace requirements. These devices need high electromechanical coupling coefficients to achieve large band pass filters. The piezoelectric material LiNbO3 complies with such specifications and is compatible with standard fabrication processes. In this work, simple metal—LiNbO3—metal structures have been developed to fabricate single FBAR elements directly connected to each other on a single chip. A fabrication process based on LiNbO3/silicon Au-Au bonding and LiNbO3 lapping/polishing has been developed and is proposed in this paper. Electrical measurements of these FBAR filters are proposed and commented exhibiting filters with 8% of fractional bandwidth and 3.3 dB of insertion losses. Electrical measurements show possibilities to obtain 14% of fractional bandwidth. These devices have been packaged, allowing for power handling, thermal, and ferroelectric tests, corresponding to spatial conditions. Thomas Baron, Eric Lebrasseur, Florent Bassignot, Haixia Wang, Sylvain Ballandras, Ji Fan, Lise Catherinot, Matthieu Chatras, Philippe Monfraix, and Laetitia Estagerie Copyright © 2013 Thomas Baron et al. All rights reserved. A Quasi-Yagi Antenna Backed by a Jerusalem Cross Frequency Selective Surface Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:39:02 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/354789/ A quasi-Yagi antenna is developed to operate at 2.4 GHz (ISM band) presenting a low profile and off-axis radiation when packaged over a metal ground plane. The off-axis radiation is realized by incorporating a Jerusalem cross frequency selective surface (JC-FSS) as the ground plane for the antenna. A JC-FSS is preferred because of its frequency stability in the operating band for a large angular spectrum (≈70°) of TE- and TM-polarized incident waves. In this research, the substrate of the antenna flush-mounted on top of the FSS is added to the JC-FSS model and allows for a smaller cell grid. The prepared quasi-Yagi antenna over the JC-FSS offered 260 MHz of functional bandwidth and 54° of beam tilt towards the end-fire direction. To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first instance that these two structures are combined for off-axis radiation. Additionally, to support the preferred use of the JC-FSS, the quasi-Yagi is backed by a square patch (SP) FSS for comparison purposes. Sergio E. Melais, David Cure, and Thomas M. Weller Copyright © 2013 Sergio E. Melais et al. All rights reserved. Compact Multiband Printed IFA on Electromagnetic Band-Gap Structures Ground Plane for Wireless Applications Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:50:19 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/248501/ The fourth mobile generation requires of multistandard operating handsets of small physical size as well as has an increasing demand for higher data rates. Compact multiband printed inverted-F antennas (IFAs) for available wireless communications are proposed in this paper. A new design of a printed IFA based on a uniplanar compact EBG concept is proposed. An L-loaded printed IFA shaped over an artificial ground plane is designed as the main antenna to cover the GSM, LTE, UMTS, bluetooth, and WLAN. The multi-band is created by means of an electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structure that is used as a ground plane. Different shapes of uniplanar EBG as ring, split ring resonator, and a spiral rather than mushroom-like structure are investigated. The proposed antenna is built on the uniplanar EBG ground plane with a size of  mm2, which is suitable for most of the mobile devices. Dalia Elsheakh and Esmat Abdallah Copyright © 2013 Dalia Elsheakh and Esmat Abdallah. All rights reserved. Microwave-Osmotic Dehydration of Cranberries under Continuous Flow Medium Spray Conditions Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:34:17 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/207308/ Microwave-osmotic dehydration of cranberries was evaluated under continuous flow medium spray (MWODS) conditions after some pretreatments. A central composite rotatable design was used with three input variables at five levels (temperature, 33°C–67°C; sucrose concentration, 33°B–67°B; and contact time, 5–55 min). Responses were moisture loss (ML), solids gain (SG), and weight reduction (WR) as well as color and texture parameters. The responses were related to process variables using response surface methodology and statistical analysis: each model was tested for lack of fit to assure nonsignificance and each process variable was tested for significance . Temperature was found to have the most prominent effect as it was significant with all drying (ML, SG, and WR) and quality (hardness and chewiness) parameters, while contact time was found to be significant with ML and WR. Concentration wasn’t found to be significant for any response. Increasing skin pretreatment severity generally promoted SG but had little effect on ML. The exception was chemical peeling, which favored ML but had no effect on SG. Overall, MWODS enables food dehydration in a much faster period of time than conventional osmotic dehydration (COD), while specifically promoting moisture loss over solids gain. Derek Wray and Hosahalli S. Ramaswamy Copyright © 2013 Derek Wray and Hosahalli S. Ramaswamy. All rights reserved. Permittivity and Backscattering Coefficient of Diesel Oil-Contaminated Soil at C Band (5.3 GHz) Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:17:27 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2013/950862/ Studying the behavior of soil contaminated by diesel requires the measurement and calculation of electrical parameters such as permittivity and backscattering coefficient. It is also necessary to study the physical parameters such as surface roughness. The intent of this paper is to present a broad and updated overview of the diesel oil contaminated soil, emphasizing permittivity and scattering coefficient that are involved in determining and detecting the rate at which and extent to which hydrocarbons contaminate the soil and environment. The measurement of permittivity and the calculations of backscattering coefficient values were made with different amounts of diesel oil contamination and different incident angles in 5° intervals ranging from 10° to 80° for both horizontal and vertical polarization at C band. The values of scattering coefficient for different look angles (25°, 30°, 35°, 40°, 45°, 50°, and 55°) were calculated and are suitable for comparison with data generated from other remote sensing platforms. Accurate electrical parameter measurements of soil contamination and recognition of their dependence on physical and chemical composition are interesting and can support using microwave remote sensing instruments to observe the earth. Nima Ahmadian, Sayeh Hasan, and Om Prakash Narayan Calla Copyright © 2013 Nima Ahmadian et al. All rights reserved. A Systemic Approach to the Compensation of Rain Attenuation in Ka-Band Communication Satellites Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:59:25 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/791635/ Rain attenuation at Ka-band is a severe phenomenon that drastically impairs satellite communications at these frequencies. Several adaptive compensation techniques have been elaborated to counteract its effects and most often applied one at a time. The present paper proposes the contemporary exploitation of different techniques in a combined approach. Such an integrated approach is thoroughly analyzed in a simplified scenario and will be shown to achieve a very effective solution, making the Ka-band spectrum fully available for broadband satellite applications and network-centric systems. Piero Angeletti and Marco Lisi Copyright © 2012 Piero Angeletti and Marco Lisi. All rights reserved. Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Sensors, Systems, and Techniques for Electromagnetic Imaging and Materials Characterization Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:36:59 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/132136/ Andrea Randazzo, Kristen M. Donnell, and Yeou Song (Brian) Lee Copyright © 2012 Andrea Randazzo et al. All rights reserved. Swarm Optimization Methods in Microwave Imaging Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:08:59 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/491713/ Swarm intelligence denotes a class of new stochastic algorithms inspired by the collective social behavior of natural entities (e.g., birds, ants, etc.). Such approaches have been proven to be quite effective in several applicative fields, ranging from intelligent routing to image processing. In the last years, they have also been successfully applied in electromagnetics, especially for antenna synthesis, component design, and microwave imaging. In this paper, the application of swarm optimization methods to microwave imaging is discussed, and some recent imaging approaches based on such methods are critically reviewed. Andrea Randazzo Copyright © 2012 Andrea Randazzo. All rights reserved. A Dual-Band SiGe HBT Frequency-Tunable and Phase-Shifting Differential Amplifier Employing Varactor-Loaded, Stacked LC Resonators Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:20:26 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/157971/ A dual-band SiGe HBT frequency-tunable and phase-shifting differential amplifier has been developed for the future active phased array antennas with a multiband, multibeam, and multitarget tracking operation. The amplifier uses varactor-loaded, stacked LC resonators in the design of the output circuit in order to provide frequency-tunable and phase-shifting capabilities for dual frequencies. By utilizing the varactor-loaded LC resonator, which has a variable resonant frequency and a large insertion phase variation, frequency-tunable and phase-shifting performances become available. Moreover, by using the stacked configuration, the frequency and insertion phase can be varied independently for dual frequencies. A dual-band SiGe HBT differential amplifier has achieved a lower-frequency tuning range of 0.56 to 0.7 GHz for a higher fixed frequency of 0.97 GHz as well as a higher-frequency tuning range of 0.92 to 1.01 GHz for a lower fixed frequency of 0.63 GHz. A lower-frequency phase variation of 99° and a higher-frequency phase variation of 90.3° have been accomplished at 0.63 and 0.97 GHz, respectively. This is the first report on the dual-band differential amplifier with frequency-tunable and phase-shifting capabilities. Kazuyoshi Sakamoto and Yasushi Itoh Copyright © 2012 Kazuyoshi Sakamoto and Yasushi Itoh. All rights reserved. Performance Comparison of UWB Pulse Modulation Schemes under White Gaussian Noise Channels Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:03:26 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/590153/ In this paper, and for the first time, the performance of various ultra wideband pulse modulation schemes are discussed and compared in terms of narrowband interference robustness, symbol error rate, system complexity, data rate, and maximum transmit power with respect to transceiver distance and channel capacity. The channel model is the UWB IEEE 802.15.3a multipath indoor channel model under additive white Gaussian noise. The transmit power was evaluated by integrating the fifth derivative of the power spectrum density of the Gaussian pulse over the whole bandwidth. O. Abedi and M. C. E. Yagoub Copyright © 2012 O. Abedi and M. C. E. Yagoub. All rights reserved. A Second Harmonic Self-Oscillating Mixer Incorporating Resonant Cell Structure Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:30:14 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/565906/ A downconverting second harmonic self-oscillating mixer (SOM) is developed for low-cost wireless communications applications. Incorporating resonant cell in the SOM, we can provide suitable oscillation for generating LO and terminations to all major unwanted mixing products, leading to high conversion gain design. The proposed SOM was measured with 8.5 dB downconversion gain at the RF frequency of 8.2 GHz RF, LO frequency of 4.0 GHz, and IF frequency of 0.2 GHz. The proposed design achieves higher conversion gain than that of the SOM without resonant cell. Leung Chiu and Quan Xue Copyright © 2012 Leung Chiu and Quan Xue. All rights reserved. Spatial Qualification Tests for Highly Selective Compact Micromachined Band Pass Planar Filters Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:26:27 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/650754/ A highly selective planar band pass filter is proposed for satellite receivers to suppress intermodulation components. The 4-pole filter has a center frequency of 19.825 GHz with a bandwidth of 240 MHz. The measured quality factor is over 600 and the insertion losses are 4.1 dB. The micromachining technological process is used to fabricate this filter. A BCB (benzocyclobutene) thin layer is used as an electrical and mechanical support for the filter. The compatibility of the BCB with the spatial constraints was tested. Various tests were accomplished for this purpose and the results of all these tests are presented in the paper. The tests showed a very small influence of the temperature variation and high temperature storage test and practically no influence of the radiation test on the circuit. Raghida Hajj, Matthieu Chatras, Pierre Blondy, Olivier Vendier, Wolfgang Tschanum, and Frederic Courtade Copyright © 2012 Raghida Hajj et al. All rights reserved. A Novel Internal Dual-Polarized EBG Antenna for Indoor Reception of UHF Terrestrial Digital TV Broadcasting Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:30:22 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/873126/ A novel internal antenna has been developed for indoor reception of UHF terrestrial digital TV broadcasting. The overall size of some configurations of the new antenna is less than 2 cm3, and its weight is less than 1 gm. It is made of a flexible material that can be bent or folded and shaped in any form. It is an unbalanced resonant antenna that does not need a matching circuit. The new antenna can be fully embedded inside TV sets or portable computers. It has a bandwidth of about 68%. Thus, it can also cover the bands of GSM and CDMA, which is advantageous in case of portable computers. The new antenna is linearly polarized. It can be easily modified to be dual polarized by combining two orthogonal antennas with one or two feed points. The overall efficiency of some configurations of the new indoor digital TV receiving antenna is more than 80%, and its peak gain is about 2 dBi over the whole UHF band. The peak gain can be increased to more than 5 dBi by adding EBG (electromagnetic bandgap) structures. The EBG structure also increases the efficiency to around 90%. Mohamed Sanad and Noha Hassan Copyright © 2012 Mohamed Sanad and Noha Hassan. All rights reserved. Wide Range Temperature Sensors Based on One-Dimensional Photonic Crystal with a Single Defect Wed, 15 Aug 2012 08:53:43 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/182793/ Transmission characteristics of one-dimensional photonic crystal structure with a defect have been studied. Transfer matrix method has been employed to find the transmission spectra of the proposed structure. We consider a Si/air multilayer system and refractive index of Si layer has been taken as temperature dependent. As the refractive index of Si layer is a function of temperature of medium, so the central wavelength of the defect mode is a function of temperature. Variation in temperature causes the shifting of defect modes. It is found that the average change or shift in central wavelength of defect modes is 0.064 nm/K. This property can be exploited in the design of a temperature sensor. Arun Kumar, Vipin Kumar, B. Suthar, A. Bhargava, Kh. S. Singh, and S. P. Ojha Copyright © 2012 Arun Kumar et al. All rights reserved. A Simple Microstrip Bandstop Filter Using Cross-Coupling Stubs Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:13:27 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/473030/ This paper presents an alterative implementation of a shunt open-circuited stub for multilayer microwave circuit. With making use of the proposed implementation, a simple and compact bandstop filter with a district bandstop characteristics and a first spurious at the third harmonic is proposed. The proposed filter exhibits about 12.5% fractional bandwidth of −10 dB signal rejection at the center frequency of 2.04 GHz and flat group delay at the pass bands. Besides, by cascading a number of the proposed bandstop filters designed at the different frequencies, multiband bandstop filters can be easily realized. A dual- (tri-) band design at the center frequencies of 2 GHz and 3 GHz (and 4 GHz) is designed, realized, and measured. The proposed bandstop filter well suits the nowadays multilayer and compact radio frequency integrated circuit design. Leung Chiu and Quan Xue Copyright © 2012 Leung Chiu and Quan Xue. All rights reserved. Complex Permittivity Measurements of Textiles and Leather in a Free Space: An Angular-Invariant Approach Tue, 07 Aug 2012 10:15:29 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/375601/ The paper describes the complex permittivity measurements of textiles and leathers in a free space at 330 GHz. The destructive role of the Rayleigh scattering effect is considered and the angular-invariant limit for an incidence angle has been found out experimentally within 25–30 degrees. If incidence angle exceeds this critical parameter, the uncertainty caused by the Rayleigh scattering is drastically increased preventing accurate measurements of the real and imaginary parts of a bulky material. The phenomenon must be taken into consideration in predicting shielding effectiveness of materials covering hidden object in concealed threat detection with millimeter-wave radar systems. B. Kapilevich, B. Litvak, M. Anisimov, D. Hardon, and Y. Pinhasi Copyright © 2012 B. Kapilevich et al. All rights reserved. Buried Object Detection by an Inexact Newton Method Applied to Nonlinear Inverse Scattering Sun, 29 Jul 2012 13:19:21 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/637301/ An approach to reconstruct buried objects is proposed. It is based on the integral equations of the electromagnetic inverse scattering problem, written in terms of the Green’s function for half-space geometries. The full nonlinearity of the problem is exploited in order to inspect strong scatterers. After discretization of the continuous model, the resulting equations are solved in a regularization sense by means of a two-step inexact Newton algorithm. The capabilities and limitations of the method are evaluated by means of some numerical simulations. Matteo Pastorino and Andrea Randazzo Copyright © 2012 Matteo Pastorino and Andrea Randazzo. All rights reserved. Fracture Toughness of Vinyl Ester Composites Reinforced with Sawdust and Postcured in Microwaves Sun, 29 Jul 2012 11:32:28 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/152726/ A commercial vinyl ester resin supplied by Hetron Chemical Pty. was reinforced with varying percentages by weight of sawdust. The sawdust particles were sieved into 3 different sizes, which were <300 μm, 300–425 μm, and 425–1180 μm, respectively, with a view to increase its fracture toughness for civil and structural applications. The sawdust used varied from 0% w/t to 15% w/t in step of 5% w/t. For higher w/t% of sawdust, the mixture would be too sticky to be mixed and cast. The cast composites were cured in ambient conditions and then postcured in microwave irradiation. They were then tested for fracture toughness using short bar tests. The values of fracture toughness of the composites increased with increasing particulate size, and this is due to the size distribution of the filler. It was found that the optimum amount of sawdust (425–1180 μm) was 15% w/t, with which the increase in fracture toughness was 126% as compared to neat resin and the reduction in cost was 15%. Furthermore, the optimum amount of sawdust (300–425 μm) was also 15% w/t, with which the increase in fracture toughness was 28.3% as compared to neat resin and the reduction in cost was again 15%. H. Ku, M. Prajapati, and M. Trada Copyright © 2012 H. Ku et al. All rights reserved. System-on-Package MHMIC Milimeter-Wave Frequency Synthesizer for 60 GHz WPANs Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:30:57 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/906516/ We present a low-cost millimeter-wave frequency synthesizer with ultralow phase noise, implemented using system-on-package (SoP) techniques for high-data-rate wireless personal area network (WPAN) systems operating in the unlicensed 60 GHz ISM band (57–64 GHz). The phase noise specification of the proposed frequency synthesizer is derived for a worst case scenario of an 802.11.3c system, which uses a 64-QAM 512-carrier-OFDM modulation, and a data rate of 5.775 Gbps. Our design approach adopts commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) components integrated in a low-cost alumina-based miniature hybrid microwave integrated circuit (MHMIC) package. The proposed design approach reduces not only the system cost and time-to-market, but also enhances the system performance in comparison with system-on-chip (SoC) designs. The synthesizer has measured phase noise of −111.5 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset and integrated phase noise of 2.8° (simulated: 2.5°) measured at 57.6 GHz with output power of +1 dBm. Boris Spokoinyi, Rony E. Amaya, Ibrahim Haroun, and Jim Wight Copyright © 2012 Boris Spokoinyi et al. All rights reserved. Analysis and Design of Transformer-Based mm-Wave Transmit/Receive Switches Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:36:06 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/302302/ Transformer-based shunt single pole, double-throw (SPDT) switches are analyzed, and design equations are provided. A mm-wave transformer-based SPDT shunt switch prototype was designed and fabricated in 90 nm digital CMOS process. It has a minimum insertion loss of 3.4 dB at 50 GHz from the single pole to the ON-thru port and a leakage of 19 dB from the single pole to the OFF-thru port. The isolation is 13.7 dB between the two thru ports. Large signal measurements verify that the switch is capable of handling +14 dBm of input power at its 1 dB compression point. The fabricated SPDT switch has a minute active area size of 60𝜇m×60𝜇m. Ehsan Adabi and Ali M. Niknejad Copyright © 2012 Ehsan Adabi and Ali M. Niknejad. All rights reserved. Location and Shape Reconstruction of 2D Dielectric Objects by Means of a Closed-Form Method: Preliminary Experimental Results Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:39:44 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/801324/ An analytical approach to location and shape reconstruction of dielectric scatterers, that was recently proposed, is tested against experimental data. Since the cross-sections of the scatterers do not depend on the z coordinate, a 2D problem can be formulated. A closed-form singular value decomposition of the scattering integral operator is derived and is used to determine the radiating components of the equivalent source density. This is a preliminary step toward a more complete solution, which will take into account the incident field inside the investigation domain in order to provide the dielectric features of the scatterer and also the nonradiating sources. Reconstructions of the equivalent sources, performed on some scattering data belonging to the Fresnel database, show the capabilities of the method and, thanks to the closed-form solution, results are obtained in a very short computation time. Gian Luigi Gragnani and Maurizio Diaz Mendez Copyright © 2012 Gian Luigi Gragnani and Maurizio Diaz Mendez. All rights reserved. A UWB Bidirectional Rectangular Ring Antenna Fed by CDM with a Rod and Ridges for Constant Beam Direction Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:58:03 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmst/2012/691214/ This paper presents an ultra-wideband (UWB) rectangular ring antenna excited by a circular disc monopole (CDM) with a conducting rod and two double ridges to radiate bidirectional pattern with constant beam direction along the entire UWB frequency range of 3.1–10.6 GHz. The conducting rod and double ridges at the upper wall of the ring are added to solve the tilted beam problem at the higher edge frequency whereas the double ridges at the lower wall are used to enhance the impedance bandwidth. The dimensions of the rectangular ring and the CDM are initially considered to achieve the bidirectional pattern with the suitable resonant frequencies and bandwidth. Then, the parameters of copper rod and two double ridges are determined by parametric study using CST Microwave Studio simulation software. The prototype antenna was fabricated, and the measured results show good agreement with the simulated ones. The obtained bandwidth of |S11|<−10 dB can cover the UWB frequency range as well as the bidirectional beam radiation with constant beam direction (𝜃=0∘,180∘ and 𝜙=90∘). The minimum and maximum measured gains are 3.1 dBi to 5.3 dBi, respectively. The proposed antenna possesses compact size with good radiation performance that can be a promising candidate for UWB applications. S. Vongsack, S. Lamultree, P. Osklang, C. Phongcharoenpanich, S. Kosulvit, K. Hamamoto, and T. Wakabayashi Copyright © 2012 S. Vongsack et al. All rights reserved.