Low-cost Smart Antennas

An authoritative guide to the latest developments for the design of low-cost smart antennas

Traditional smart antenna systems are costly, consume great amounts of power and are bulky size. Low-cost Smart Antennas offers a guide to designing smart antenna systems that are low cost, low power, and compact in size and can be applied to satellite communications, radar and mobile communications. The authors — noted experts on the topic — provide introductions to the fundamental concepts of antennas, array antennas and smart antennas. The book fills a gap in the literature by presenting the design techniques of low-cost radio frequency (RF) smart antennas as well as approaches for implementing the hardware of the antenna and the beamforming network (BFN).

A comprehensive and accessible book, Low-cost Smart Antennas not only presents an up-to-date review of the topic but includes illustrative case studies that contain in-depth explorations of the theory and technology of smart antennas. While other resources highlight the software (signal processing algorithms), this book is unique by focusing on the antenna hardware. This important book: 

• Offers an introduction to the most recent developments of the design of low-cost smart antennas and their applications
• Presents a unique book that puts the focus on antenna hardware
• Includes a variety of case studies that clearly demonstrate the implementation of current design techniques
• Introduces both fundamental theories as well as more advanced topics

Written for students and researchers and antenna engineers, Low-cost Smart Antennas explores the most recent advances in the field with an emphasis on antenna hardware.

Qi Luo, PhD, is a research fellow at the School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent, UK. He received his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal, in 2012. His areas of expertise include phased arrays, smart antennas, reflectarrays, circularly polarized antennas, MIMO and multiband antennas. He has authored and co-authored many papers in international journals and conferences. He is one of the authors of the book on Circularly Polarized Antennas (Wiley-IEEE, 2014).

Steven (Shichang) Gao, PhD, is a Professor and Chair of RF and Microwave Engineering, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent, UK. His research focuses on smart antennas, wideband/multi-band antennas, MIMO antenna systems and phased arrays. He co-authored and co-edited 2 books including Space Antenna Handbook (Wiley, 2012) and Circularly Polarized Antennas (Wiley-IEEE, 2014), over 300 refereed papers and 4 patents. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation and Radio Science, and was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (2014-2016). He is the Director of Post-graduate Research at the University of Kent, UK.

Wei Liu, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK. He received his PhD from University of Southampton, UK. His research is focused on signal processing and its various applications, and in particular array signal processing (beamforming and direction of arrival estimation). He has published more than 250 journal and conference papers and a research monograph titled Wideband Beamforming: Concepts and Techniques (Wiley, 2010). He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing and IEEE Access and an editorial board member of Frontiers of Information Technology and Electronic Engineering.

Chao Gu, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Kent, UK. His research focuses on smart antennas, reconfigurable antennas and THz antennas. He received his PhD from the University of Kent, UK. He has published several papers in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation on smart antennas and reconfigurable antennas.

Preface ix

Acknowledgement xi

List of Abbreviations xiii

1 Introduction to Smart Antennas 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Antenna Fundamentals 2

1.2.1 Antenna Impedance and Bandwidth 2

1.2.2 Radiation Patterns and Efficiency 4

1.2.3 Polarisations 8

1.3 Antenna Array Fundamentals 9

1.3.1 Array Performance Analysis 12

1.3.2 Active Reflection Coefficient and Mutual Coupling 12

1.3.3 Directivity and Beamwidth 14

1.3.4 Grating Lobe 15

1.3.5 Scan Blindness 16

1.4 Smart Antenna Architecture and Hardware Implementation 17

1.4.1 ADC and DAC 20

1.4.2 Digital Down-Converter (DDC) 20

1.4.3 Digital Signal Processor 20

1.4.4 Field-programmable Gate Array 21

1.5 Overview of the Book 22

References 23

2 Beamforming Algorithms for Smart Antennas 25

2.1 Introduction 25

2.2 Basic Concepts for Beamforming 27

2.3 Fixed Beamformer Design 30

2.3.1 FIR Filter Based Design 30

2.3.2 Least Squares Based Design 32

2.3.3 Beam Steering 33

2.4 Adaptive Beamforming Algorithms 36

2.4.1 Reference Signal Based Beamformer 36

2.4.2 The Capon Beamformer 38

2.5 Blind Beamforming Algorithms 40

2.5.1 The Power Minimisation Algorithm 40

2.5.2 The Constant Modulus Algorithm 42

2.6 Low-cost Adaptive Beamforming 43

2.6.1 Analogue and Digital Hybrid Beamforming 43

2.6.2 Robust Adaptive Beamforming 45

2.7 Summary of the Chapter 50

References 50

3 Electronically Steerable Parasitic Array 59

3.1 Introduction 59

3.2 Theory and Operation Principle 59

3.3 Low-cost Folded-monopole ESPAR 63

3.4 ESPAR Antenna with Low Control Voltage 70

3.4.1 FM-ESPAR using PIN diodes 70

3.4.2 Link Quality Test 72

3.5 Planar ESPAR Antennas 75

3.6 Case Studies 86

3.6.1 ESPAR using Monopole 86

3.6.2 Planar Ultra-thin ESPAR 90

3.7 Summary of the Chapter 98

References 99

4 Beam-Reconfigurable Antennas Using Active Frequency Selective Surfaces 103

4.1 Introduction 103

4.2 FSS Fundamentals and Active FSSs 104

4.2.1 FSS Elements 104

4.2.2 Dielectric Loading Effects 105

4.2.3 FSS Analysis Techniques 106

4.2.4 Active Metal Strip FSS 107

4.2.5 Active Slot FSS 111

4.2.6 Active FSS Biasing Techniques 113

4.3 Monopole-fed Beam-switching Antenna using AFSS 114

4.4 Dual-Band Beam-Switching Antenna using AFSS 120

4.5 3D Beam Coverage of Electronic Beam-Switching Antenna using FSS 125

4.6 Frequency-agile Beam-switchable Antenna 138

4.7 Continuous Beam-steering Antennas using FSSs 145

4.8 Case Study 153

4.9 Summary of the Chapter 159

References 160

5 Beam Reconfigurable Reflectarrays and Transmitarrays 165

5.1 Introduction 165

5.2 Reflectarray and Transmitarray Design Fundamentals 166

5.2.1 Reflectarrays 166

5.2.2 Transmitarrays 169

5.3 Beam Reconfigurable Reflectarrays 171

5.3.1 Multi-feed Reflectarray 171

5.3.2 Reflectarray with RF Switches 174

5.3.3 Reflectarray with Tunable Components 177

5.4 Beam Reconfigurable Transmitarray 181

5.5 Circularly Polarised Beam-steerable Reflectarrays and Transmitarrays 185

5.6 Case Study 189

5.7 Summary of the Chapter 195

References 196

6 Compact MIMO Antenna Systems 199

6.1 Introduction 199

6.2 MIMO Antennas 199

6.2.1 Isolation 200

6.2.2 Envelope Correlation Coefficient 201

6.2.3 Total Active Reflection Coefficient 202

6.3 Compact MIMO Antenna with High Isolation 203

6.3.1 Neutralisation Technique 203

6.3.2 Metamaterial 205

6.3.3 Decoupling Network 209

6.4 Compact MIMO Antenna with Adaptive Radiation Patterns 215

6.5 Case Studies 218

6.5.1 Increase the Physical Separation 220

6.5.2 Change the Antenna Orientation 220

6.5.3 Modify the Ground Plane 222

6.5.4 Summary 224

6.6 Summary of the Chapter 225

References 225

7 Other Types of Low-cost Smart Antennas 229

7.1 Introduction 229

7.2 Lens Antennas 229

7.2.1 Lens Antenna Basics 229

7.2.2 Millimetre-wave Lens Antenna Design 231

7.3 Retrodirective Array Antenna 236

7.3.1 Van Altta Array 237

7.3.2 Phase Conjugating Array 239

7.4 Fabry–Perot Resonator Antennas 243

7.5 Array-fed Reflector 246

7.5.1 Operation Principle 246

7.5.2 Beam-switching Performance 251

7.6 Multibeam Antennas based on BFN 253

7.6.1 Butler Matrix 253

7.6.2 Rotman Lens 257

7.6.3 Blass and Nolen matrices 259

7.7 Summary of the Chapter 261

References 262

Index 267

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.