Innovative Antenna Designs for Broadband Circularly-Polarized Wireless Systems and Software Radios

Speaker: Joshua M. Kovitz
Affiliation: UCLA - Ph.D.Defense

Abstract:

Sustaining current increases in wireless data rates has driven engineers of all related backgrounds to seek fresh and innovative approaches in wireless system design. With the advancement of RF switching technology, transceiver architectures, and digital signal processing capabilities, the pressure now falls on the antenna designs for future broadband and adaptive wireless services. The first part of the work focuses on the development of low-profile patch antennas for circularly-polarized (CP) wireless systems. Several new antenna concepts to enhance the bandwidth of CP patch antennas are divulged with an emphasis on maintaining low design and fabrication complexity. As an application example, a high-performance antenna for future Mars Rover missions is also discussed, and a novel CP subarray was prototyped to demonstrate its use. Concepts such as composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission lines feature very interesting properties which are useful towards creating wideband CP arrays. In each case, our resulting prototypes demonstrate a notable bandwidth improvement.

In the second part of this work, reconfigurable antenna functionalities for software and cognitive radios are pursued. With the development of practical reconfigurable antenna simulation models in conjunction with nature-inspired optimization techniques, two reconfigurable patch antenna implementations are evaluated for potential use as frequency or polarization reconfigurable antennas. This is particularly useful for systems wanting to achieve unidirectional patterns with a low-profile antenna. Lastly, a rejection reconfigurable antenna element is developed for use in a null-steerable array having frequency rejection elements.

Biography:

Joshua M. Kovitz received his B.S.E.E (summa cum laude) from the University of Houston in 2010 and his M.S.E.E. from the University of California Los Angeles in 2012. Currently at UCLA, his primary research focuses on practical antenna design for cognitive radio applications in addition to reconfigurable antennas, applied electromagnetics, nature-inspired optimization techniques, and antenna arrays. He was awarded the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship and also the Distinguished M.S. Thesis award in 2012. Recently, he won 2^nd place in the Student Paper Competition at the 2015 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Conference.

For more information, contact Prof. Yahya Rahmat-Samii (rahmat@ee.ucla.edu)

Date/Time:
Date(s) - Nov 05, 2015
9:30 am - 10:30 am

Location:
E-IV Tesla Room #53-125
420 Westwood Plaza - 5th Flr., Los Angeles CA 90095