Abstract Device to device (D2D) communication that provides high data rate proximity based direct communication between users, along with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) that extracts energy from the received RF power, can achieve high energy and spectral efficiencies together with low latency communication. Heterogeneous networks, that employ efficient frequency reuse, provide high gains in the coverage and capacity of the cellular networks. SWIPT helps in converting the harmful interference, incurred by the frequency reuse of D2D tier underlaying the Hetnet, into energy that can be stored for the future. This work presents a resource allocation and power control scheme for SWIPT enabled underlay D2D networks, designed to improve the energy efficiency and the amount of energy harvested while ensuring the minimum required data rates for the users. Resource allocation is performed using a stable many-to-one matching game model inspired from Gale-Shapley algorithm. Two techniques of SWIPT, namely power splitting SWIPT and time splitting SWIPT, are considered and the resource allocation schemes are designed for both. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm compared to an existing work in single tier network with power splitting SWIPT. The work is extended to a typical 5G HetNet scenario, and extensive simulations are done to compare the performance of the two SWIPT architectures in the HetNet scenario.

Abstract Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are one of the key enabling technologies for the internet of things (IoT). WSNs play a major role in data communications in applications such as home, health care, environmental monitoring, smart grids, and transportation. WSNs are used in IoT applications and should be secured and energy efficient in order to provide highly reliable data communications. Because of the constraints of energy, memory and computational power of the WSN nodes, clustering algorithms are considered as energy efficient approaches for resource-constrained WSNs. In this paper, we present a survey of the state-of-the-art routing techniques in WSNs. We first present the most relevant previous work in routing protocols surveys then highlight our contribution. Next, we outline the background, robustness criteria, and constraints of WSNs. This is followed by a survey of different WSN routing techniques. Routing techniques are generally classified as flat, hierarchical, and location-based routing. This survey focuses on the deep analysis of WSN hierarchical routing protocols. We further classify hierarchical protocols based on their routing techniques. We carefully choose the most relevant state-of-the-art protocols in order to compare and highlight the advantages, disadvantage and performance issues of each routing technique. Finally, we conclude this survey by presenting a comprehensive survey of the recent improvements of low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy routing protocols and a comparison of the different versions presented in the literature.

Abstract Vendor managed inventory (VMI) is a streamlined approach to inventory and order fulfillment and is a system in which vendors continuously and automatically replenish a trading partner’s inventory. Vendors must ensure appropriate quantities of storages at the point of demand and must ensure optimal distribution plans, including routing of the distribution vehicles. This problem is known as the inventory routing problem (IRP) and seeks to integrate the routing of vehicles used for collection and distribution, with conventional inventory management. This paper addresses an IRP with a manufacturer that supplies a product using a fleet of vehicles to a set of warehouses over a defined time horizon. We develop a mixed integer linear program to determine the optimal allocation and the routing schedule for warehouses over the defined time horizon. To solve this problem, we propose a three-phase heuristic approach, called CAR: clustering of receiver nodes, allocation of quantities to these nodes, and routing of delivery vehicles through clusters of nodes. Computational studies are carried out and experimental trials conducted over a large number of data sets provide encouraging results and show usefulness of the solution approaches. The proposed ILP would provide optimal solution to the problem but it demands huge computational effort. However, CAR2, a proposed heuristic, is able to get solutions 7.41% better than the upper bound solutions obtained from CPLEX. These approaches can easily be implemented into existing VMI systems.

Abstract Nowadays, more and more electric power services are carried on the power information communication network (PICN) including power grid production and scheduling, communication, and environment sensing, in the form of data, voice and video. To improve the resource utilization efficiency, it is necessary to carry out traffic prediction approach in PICN. However, the accessing businesses have diversified characteristics, which are reflected to different types of traffic flow in PICN. Moreover, the traditional PICN is a distributed network and cannot be controlled flexibly, which leads to the poor accuracy of traffic prediction algorithm. To address these problems, we combine the Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture and Radial Basis Function neural network (RBFNN) for traffic intelligent prediction in PICN. The SDN controller can acquire global knowledge of PICN in each time slot to guide the data sampling process. Further, the complex nonlinear relationships of large-scale network traffics are analyzed by RBFNN model to realize high-precision traffic identification. The proposed scheme is evaluated based on by POX and Mininet platforms. Simulation results show that the proposed SDN-based intelligent prediction scheme can accurately forecast the change trend of each traffic flow and has better performance and lower prediction error than current schemes.

Abstract Power communication network is very important for the management of the power system. With the exponential growth of the power equipment and the drastic increase in the amount of power monitoring data, there is a huge challenge for the smart network access of the power communication network. Then, software defined network (SDN) which is flexible and scalable is suitable for the power communication network. In order to increase the high quality of service (QoS) of provided communication for users, the traffic QoS sensing is the key of the smart network access in the power communication network. Then, we propose a SDN-Based active measurement method to measure the evaluation parameters of the smart network access in the power communication network. Firstly, we introduce the instructions provided by the OpenFlow protocol, which can be used to collect statistics from OpenFlow switches. Secondly, we define the parameters that should be measured in the power communication network to evaluate the performance of the network and give the corresponding measurement method with them. Next, we proposed a SDN-based active measurement algorithm that updates its measurement interval based on the measurement throughput changes. Finally, we built a simulation platform using the Mininet simulator and the POX controller to verify the proposed measurement method, and the simulation results show the accuracy of our proposed method and the measurement load of our proposed method are both better than that of Polling measurement methods.

Abstract Covert wireless communication ensures information security by hiding the existence of the information transmission itself. Available works mainly focused on the covert throughput study of one-hop wireless communications, while the performance limit of covert throughput in important two-way two-hop scenarios remains largely unknown. As the most significant contribution, this paper, for the first time, investigates such performance limit in a system where two sources wish to covertly exchange information through a relay against the detection of a warden, i.e., a malicious node that attempts to detect the existence of communication between the two sources. As the second contribution, this paper considers various scenarios regarding the warden’s prior knowledge about the relay, the sources/relay’s prior knowledge about the warden, as well as different relaying patterns, and then proposes a covertness strategy to resist the warden’s detection for each scenario. As the last contribution, we derive the scaling law result for the covert throughput of the system for each scenario, i.e., the maximum number of bits that the two sources can exchange subject to a constraint on the detection probability of the warden. The results in this paper indicate that the covert throughput of the concerned system follows the well-known square root scaling law, which is independent of the relaying patterns, detection schemes, covertness strategies, and prior knowledges of the sources/relay and warden.

Abstract In recent days, swarm intelligent (SI) optimization algorithms have been proved to be a powerful framework for finding tradeoff solutions of multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs). Many researchers have proposed various SI optimization algorithms. Multi-objective artificial flora (MOAF) optimization algorithm is a recently proposed algorithm for solving MOPs. However, problems of decreased population diversity and uniformity of solutions distribution in the late evolutionary period is existed in the algorithm. Hence, this paper proposes a knee point-driven MOAF (kpMOAF) optimization algorithm to address the vulnerability of MOAF optimization algorithm. Knee points of the non-dominant solutions are taken by the proposed algorithm as criterion to guide the population evolution. Researchers have proved that select knee points equals to select a large hypervolume. Therefore, using it as criterion is an effective way to enhance the population convergence rate and maintain the diversity of solutions. In addition, adaptive neighborhood control method is introduced in the evolution process to improve the algorithm development capability. Simulation results on 10 benchmark functions demonstrate the competitiveness of kpMOAF optimization algorithm.

Abstract This article mainly focuses on the concept of cognitive radio paradigm in the ultra-wideband 3.1–10.6 GHz and recent trends of various antenna systems required for these applications. This paper also presents the working principle of cognitive radio model and the importance of UWB 3.1–10.6 GHz technology for various wireless communication applications. In the cognitive radio model, ultra-wideband antennas are employed for free channels identification and reconfigurable narrow band antennas for communication. Based on the utilization of different UWB and narrow band antennas, the antennas are divided into four distinct categories. The first category covers individual UWB and narrow band antennas. The second category includes reconfigurable UWB/NB antennas. The third category consists of dual-port integrated UWB and NB antennas. The fourth category comprise of multi-port integrated UWB and NB antennas. So, this paper reports all the four categories of ultra-wideband and frequency reconfigurable narrow band antennas clearly. It also focuses on the recent trends in these antennas. Moreover, it discusses about the comparison study of various antennas and their characteristics. Furthermore, a discussion on hardware working principle and its implementation is presented. The hardware realization is presented using arbitrary waveform generator, real-time signal analyzer, software defined radio platforms, field programmable gate arrays and universal software radio peripheral.

Abstract In this paper, we address joint spectrum allocation and pricing problem in heterogeneous wireless access networks. In contrast to traditional static spectrum allocation approach, we model the spectrum as a market commodity, dynamically arbitrated by a regulatory agent with the aim of maximizing the social welfare. This is of particular importance with the dominance of wireless technologies in access networks and the sharp increase in the number of overlapping wireless technologies and networks. We designed a novel Walrasian mechanism called economic resource allocation and pricing based on a three-stage game model capable of considering multiple networks and clients with individual attributes and preferences. In the first stage, competition among networks for spectrum allocation is handled where the regulatory evaluates the social welfare and takes corrective action. In the bottom two stages, the complex interactions between clients and networks result in bitrate allocations and service pricings. The equilibrium condition is analyzed using the Walrasian market model which is argued to be the Nash equilibrium of the proposed game. The system behavior is analyzed through extensive simulations. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed mechanisms in moving the system towards maximal social welfare.

Abstract Next 5G networks will support different kind of services covering a large number of use cases with very distinct quality of service (QoS) requirements. In particular, in enhanced mobile BroadBand usage scenarios, guaranteed bit rate (GBR) services with minimum GBR requirements and non-GBR services are provided. In the 5G radio access network, the data flows for these services are mapped into GBR data radio bearers (GBR DRBs) and non-GBR DRBs, respectively. This paper presents a new radio (NR) resource scheduling scheme designed to jointly manage this heterogeneous traffic in downlink OFDMA-based 5G NR. More specifically, our approach provides for a QoS aware joint scheduling framework, called enhanced joint scheduling (eJS) scheme, which aims at guaranteeing the minimum data rate requirements of accommodated data radio bearers. In this framework any chosen scheduling strategy can be implemented. In particular, we propose two different channel aware scheduling strategies, at the aim of being able to choose a different trade-off between the goals of maximizing the system throughput and reaching the fairness among DRBs. Moreover, the eJS scheme is designed to work well in realistic scenarios where non-ideal connection admission controls are adopted. We benchmark our eJS scheme against other existing scheduling schemes via a several number of simulations, under different traffic and channel conditions. The comparative analysis shows that our joint control scheme outperforms the reference schemes in terms of throughput and fairness, while satisfying a larger number of GBR DRBs.

Abstract This article addresses the problem of secure communication in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided wireless communication system in which a source sends confidential messages to a destination via an untrusted UAV mounted with a miniaturized energy-harvesting transceiver. The UAV can overhear the source’s confidential messages. To create a positive secrecy rate, the destination sends jamming signals during the communication. We aim to maximize the achievable secrecy rate for two scenarios: security-on-demand UAV (SoD-UAV), where the UAV can modify its trajectory and power-splitting (PS) ratio to serve the secure communication, and non-security-on-demand UAV (nSoD-UAV), where the UAV only forwards the source’s messages. For the nSoD-UAV, we optimize the transmit powers at the source and the destination for a given UAV’s trajectory and given PS ratios. For the SoD-UAV, the UAV’s trajectory, the PS ratios and the transmit powers are jointly optimized. Due to the non-convex optimization problems, we use successive convex optimization and block coordinate descent methods to find efficient approximate solutions. Numerical results verify that the achievable secrecy rate is significantly improved using the proposed algorithms.

Abstract Optical fiber access systems are one of the driving forces behind the success of the Internet. Time- and wavelength-division multiplexing passive optical network (TWDM-PON) is regarded as the key technology for future Internet access networks. In this paper, we propose an ITU TWDM-PON module for the ns-3 network simulator and describe its concept and design specifications. The proposed module is developed based on the XG-PON module for ns-3. It can simulate G.989 standard-compliant data packet transmission in the upstream and downstream directions using multiple wavelength channels. It enables us to evaluate the performance issues that arise with the TWDM-PON development, including various dynamic bandwidth allocation and dynamic wavelength allocation algorithms. The proposed module is expected to become a good platform for studying future access networks composed of TWDM-PON and mobile networks by enabling us to simulate dynamic wavelength and bandwidth allocation.

Wireless group communication has gained much popularity recently due to the increase in portable, lightweight devices. These devices are capable of performing group communication by enabling every participant to agree upon a group key for secure communication in an insecure network. Many authenticated group key agreement schemes have been proposed, but most of the schemes lack the dynamic property of mobile node joining/leaving the group such that the session key is updated without affecting the protocol. In this paper, we propose a pairing-free certificateless authenticated group key agreement protocol based on elliptic curve cryptosystem for resource-constrained mobile nodes. The objective of the proposed key-agreement protocol is to ensure the un-deniability of any message exchanged between the sender and receiver, contributory property for group key agreement, and allowing mobile users to join or leave the group dynamically by enabling forward and backward secrecy. Through the rigorous security analysis, we show that the proposed scheme achieves the well-known security functionalities against various types of attacks using informal security analysis and rigorous formal analysis using the random oracle model. Moreover, the protocol validation result using broadly-accepted automated validation of internet security protocols and applications shows that the protocol is safe under OFMC and CL-AtSe back-ends. Furthermore, the result of performance analysis shows that our proposed scheme achieves desirable security properties as compared to the existing related schemes by reducing the overall computation and communication cost despite a gradual increase in the number of participating mobile nodes.

Optimal performance and improved lifetime are the most desirable design benchmarks for WSNs and the mechanism for data gathering is a major constituent influencing these standards. Several researchers have provided significant evidence on the advantage of mobile sink (MS) in performing effective gathering of relevant data. However, determining the trajectory for MS is an NP-hard-problem. Especially in delay-inevitable applications, it is challenging to select the best-stops or rendezvous points (RPs) for MS and also to design an efficient route for MS to gather data. To provide a suitable solution to these challenges, we propose in this paper, a game theory and enhanced ant colony based MS route selection and data gathering (GTAC-DG) technique. This is a distributed method of data gathering using MS, combining the optimal decision making skill of game theory in selecting the best RPs and computational swarm intelligence of enhanced ant colony optimization in choosing the best path for MS. GTAC-DG helps to reduce data transfer and management, energy consumption and delay in data delivery. The MS moves in a reliable and intelligent trajectory, extending the lifetime and conserving the energy of WSN. The simulation results prove the effectiveness of GTAC-DG in terms of metrics such as energy and network lifetime.

Abstract Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) is the need for recent communication system for the enhancement of channel capacity. While the number of antenna array elements increased, the spacing between the array elements and size of the antenna reduced. Hence high coupling between the elements occur, and thus the channel capacity reduced. There were several existing methods employs, however there were some limitations like reduced gain, dielectric constant, and bandwidth. So as to overcome this and to increase the performance characteristics such as bandwidth, gain of MIMO antennas and to lessen the dielectric constant of substrate material this proposed scheme is introduced. Using these considerations and requirements, an array of two-element MIMO system will be designed and developed with a less dielectric material (\( \varvec{\varepsilon}_{{\varvec{r }}} < 4 \)). So in this Taconic RF-35 (dielectric constant is 3.5), Two T-Shaped antennas are employed for 2.45 GHz (ISM band) with multiple modes of operation to achieve the improved bandwidth of about − 10 db. Simulation is done by HFSS 13.0.

In such mobile platforms as ships and aircraft, the detection and reconnaissance devices are near to the communication facilities. When working at the same time, they will create interference or jamming themselves. Especially, the high-power radar equipment tend to cause a high bit error rate (BER) in the data link system (DLS), with the result that the DLS cannot operate normally. For this reason, this paper makes a study of the BER performance of the DLS under the pulse linear frequency modulation (LFM) interference in the time-varying Rayleigh channel. In view of the the time-varying characteristics of channel in the practical conditions, the interference channel is modeled as a time-varying Rayleigh fading channel and the formula of BER is derived. Through simulation, the theoretical deduction is proved to be correct. This is of much importance to analyzing the variation of BER performance with the pulse width, power and doppler frequency shift under the pulse LFM interference.

Abstract The conducted researches have shown that the features of the housing and communal sector do not allow talking about the possibility of calculating the “optimal” tariff rate. The development of an effective method of tariff formation for rural areas is particularly acute. The use of traditional method to calculate the amount of tariffs for housing and communal services provided to the population and enterprises (called “cost plus” approach) consists in a simple summation of the cost price of a service with a premium that was set directly by a particular housing and communal enterprise within the maximum and minimum values. The authors found that none of the current pricing and tariffs’ setting methods fulfills the requirements for an effective and economically founded tariff policy in the housing and communal services sector. In this regard, the development of a new methodology that will ensure the receipt of compromise tariffs for housing and communal services is required. Compromise analysis, the main purpose of which is to obtain optimal prices, can be used as a basis of such methodology.

Since 1999 IEEE 802.11 has become a dominating wireless technology for providing WLAN in both public and private places. The protocol has evolved with time and the current version of protocol allows the maximum data rate up to 6.76 Gbps. Providing high data rate makes it capable of supporting applications demanding high bandwidth and less delay. The protocol is built on carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) principle to minimize the collisions. In real-time networks as the traffic increases, collisions take place between different flows leading to delay and wastage of bandwidth. In literature, various works are dedicated to predicting the collision probability to estimate available bandwidth of the network. One of the popular approaches “ABE” (Sarr et al. in IEEE Trans Mob Comput 7(10):1228–1241, 2008) focused on this issue and calculates collision probability of “Hello Packets” and interpolating it to get the collision probability of data packets to estimate the available bandwidth. The current work proposes to use an analytical approach to predict the collision probability without any intrusiveness and estimate the available bandwidth for accurate admission control. Most of the literature that uses mathematical approach assumed homogeneous conditions. The current paper takes into consideration heterogeneous conditions to resemble real networks. The paper proposes amalgamation of passive approach and analytical approach, yielding more accurate results. The work is verified through extensive simulations to validate our proposed model. Since the model is based on analytical approach, major benefits are: (a) there is no need to send packets for estimating the collisions, hence scaling down the overheads; (b) One can change the parameters and predict the result set for any given conditions; (c) the method is cost-effective and non-intrusive in nature.

Before a dense Wi-Fi network is deployed, Wi-Fi providers must be careful with the performance promises they made in their way to win a bidding process. After such deployment takes place, Wi-Fi-network owners—such as public institutions—must verify that the QoS agreements are being fulfilled. We have merged both needs into a low-cost measurement system, a report of measurements at diverse scenarios and a performance prediction tool. The measurement system allows measuring the actual goodput that a set of users are receiving, and it has been used in a number of schools on a national scale. From this experience, we report measurements for different scenarios and diverse factors—which may result of interest to practitioners by themselves. Finally, we translate all the learned lessons to a freely-available capacity-planning tool for forecasting performance given a set of input parameters such as frequency, signal strength and number of users—and so, useful for estimating the cost of future deployments.

Magnified resource consumption and depletion of natural resources calls for non-flexible or strict regulations and penalties on industrial operations, increased rate of processing and reuse of waste material as a substitute for raw material and political and legal interventions at global scale. Product recovery involves reuse, repair, refurbishing, remanufacturing and materials recycling, requires an efficient network design known as reverse logistic network and offers economical benefits in terms of fewer procurement of raw material, inventory management and less disposal. In current study, a mixed integer linear programming model designed on a multi-stage reverse logistics network for product recovery is proposed which considers different recovery options-product remanufacturing, component reprocessing and material recycling for sustainable outcomes. The model is designed to find optimal solutions for fulfilling demand and revenue needs by focusing on strategic locations for collection centers, reprocessing centers, remanufacturing plants and transportation options and simultaneously achieving sustainability goals. The model is applied on an Indian based manufacturing unit of a Saudi Arabian Industrial Air conditioner manufacturing organization and the case is presented here. The model is converted into a multi-objective programming model in accordance with the importance of each objective suiting the business needs. All relevant objective functions are evaluated using BWM, AHP and FAHP methods to obtain weights for integration into a fuzzy linear programming model which eventually provides three separate results. The model applied has originality and uniqueness for applications to solve multi-objective problems under uncertain environment and tends to strike a balance between economic and environmental objectives. The study provides for a base for further scope covering uncertainty about the amount and quality of returned products and even can be implemented by practitioners and academics for making a significant contribution in improving the efficiency of supply chains.

The detection and transmission of a physical variable over time, by a node of a sensor network to its sink node, represents a significant communication overload and consequently one of the main energy consumption processes. In this article we present an algorithm for the prediction of time series, with which it is expected to reduce the energy consumption of a sensor network, by reducing the number of transmissions when reporting to the sink node only when the prediction of the sensed value differs in certain magnitude, to the actual sensed value. For this end, the proposed algorithm combines a wavelet multiresolution transform with robust prediction using Gaussian process. The data is processed in wavelet domain, taking advantage of the transform ability to capture geometric information and decomposition in more simple signals or subbands. Subsequently, the decomposed signal is approximated by Gaussian process one for each subband of the wavelet, in this manner the Gaussian process is given to learn a much simple signal. Once the process is trained, it is ready to make predictions. We compare our method with pure Gaussian process prediction showing that the proposed method reduces the prediction error and is improves large horizons predictions, thus reducing the energy consumption of the sensor network.

Abstract Energy conservation is the main issue in wireless sensor networks. Many existing clustering protocols have been proposed to balance the energy consumption and maximize the battery lifetime of sensor nodes. However, these protocols suffer from the excessive overhead due to repetitive clustering resulting in high-energy consumption. In this paper, we propose energy-aware cluster-based routing protocol (ECRP) in which not only the cluster head (CH) role rotates based on energy around all cluster members until the end of network functioning to avoid frequent re-clustering, but also it can adapt the network topology change. Further, ECRP introduces a multi-hop routing algorithm so that the energy consumption is minimized and balanced. As well, a fault-tolerant mechanism is proposed to cope up with the failure of CHs and relay nodes. We perform extensive simulations on the proposed protocol using different network scenarios. The simulation results demonstrate the superiority of ECRP compared with recent and relevant existing protocols in terms of main performance metrics.

Abstract Government now-a-days are looking forward to achieve “Energy for All” standards. Countries are committing themselves to reduce carbon emissions. Recently, every IT industry giants, who typically own and operate huge Data Centers (DC) are looking forward to achieve “100% usage of green energy to power their datacenters, contribute to the utility grid in equivalence to their electrical power consumptions”. Electrification and gradual decarbonisation still continue as significant, global concern. Hence it is pretty clear that need for MicroGrid (MG) based facilities is actually a mandatory. But intermittent-characteristic (unreliability/unavailability) of Renewable-Energy (RE) generating sources (like Solar Panels, Wind Turbines) regularly hinder both the stake holders-Government and IT industry from accomplishing such social and economic initiatives. Hence SmartMicroGrid (SMG) connected with utility grid are envisioned to support powering industries inorder to avoid future power outages. Interconnected industry4.0 factories where, actually the smart-management interms of two-way power supply and two-way communication network is foreseen. They are highly dependent on modern, integrated, Information and Communication technologies (IoT sensors, Fog and Cloud computing etc.). In this paper we have focussed on two objectives. Firstly our objective is to identify, optimum renewable-generation-capacities inorder to minimise investment cost of a microgrid. Secondly our objective is to maximize usage of more clean energy for applications running on FogMicroDataCenter (fogMDC), powered by microgrids and controlled by Sofware Defined Networking (SDN). We have used realistic meteorological data of Tamil nadu, India for our proposed work. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work proposed for two different scenarios, performance modelling and economic modelling aiding MG powered FogMDCs. Proposed economic modelling work is related to finding, the optimum sizing of distributed energy resources and financial cost. Proposed performance modelling is about, the clean energy usages in micro grid powered fogMDC for operations, supported by SDN for efficient distributed Virtual Machine (VM) based resource utilization to guarantee QoS in time sensitive IoT applications.

In this paper, we investigate the content deployment problem from precaching and device-to-device communication perspectives. In the precaching stage, contents are prefetched and stored in edge nodes to be quickly provided to end users. In the device-to-device communication process, intermediate nodes face a dilemma in deciding whether to cache contents coming from or going to neighboring nodes to accelerate the content delivery. We call the former proactive caching and the latter reactive caching. We then design ProRec, a unified caching framework, by jointly considering the two cases with the goal of maximizing the content hit ratio. ProRec first addresses the optimization problem using the method of Lagrangian multipliers and obtains a general solution to the optimal content copies. Second, a greedy solution, proven to achieve the optimum with a probability of at least \(1-1/e\), is used to cache and replace contents. Finally, an edge computing simulation platform that includes real and synthetic traces is built as a case study to verify the effectiveness of ProRec. The numerical results show that it simultaneously improves the cache hit ratio and content delivery delay.

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A circularly polarized (CP) broad-beam parallel-plate (PP) antenna is investigated. The difference between the phase velocities of two PP orthogonal modes is used to obtain CP fields. The two orthogonal modes are excited by an inclined slot fabricated on the ground plane that connects the two PPs. By tuning the slot length, the impedance can be easily matched. To reduce the cross-polarized fields, a modified CP PP antenna with semicircular plates is introduced. ANSYS HFSS was used to simulate the antennas and prototypes were fabricated to verify the simulations. Both the original and modified CP PP antennas have an overlapping antenna bandwidth of ~13.0% and an antenna gain of ~8 dBic. As compared with other broad-beam antennas, the two PP antennas have simpler and larger structures, easing their fabrications especially at millimeter-wave frequencies. A design guideline is developed.

A novel design concept to reduce high H-plane cross-polarization of a shorted patch antenna (SPA) with broadside radiated patterns is presented by loading a pair of open-ended stubs. Initially, the nonbroadside $\vert E_{\mathrm {\theta }}\vert $ component of the traditional SPA at TM $_{\mathrm {1/2,2}}$ mode is demonstrated to be much larger than its broadside $\vert E_{\varphi }\vert $ component in H-plane or yoz plane radiation patterns. In order to maintain its peak radiation in the normal direction, the far-zone radiated fields of the antenna are theoretically studied and analyzed. The results demonstrate that the dual nodal lines of the TM $_{\mathrm {1/2,2}}$ modal fields could be gradually moved far away from each other by increasing the stub length. As such, its $\vert E_{\varphi }\vert $ and $\vert E_{\theta }\vert $ components in H-plane or yoz plane radiation patterns could be progressively strengthened and weakened, respectively. After that, by reallocating these dual nodal lines around the corners of the radiating patch, the nonbroadside radiated fields of TM 1/2,2 mode are successfully transformed into the broadside radiation, while keeping a low H-plane cross-polarization level. Additionally, the symmetric open-ended stubs are folded so as to reduce the dimensions of the core radiator. In final, the proposed SPA is fabricated and measured. Simulated and measured results are found in good agreement with each other, and both of them illustrate that the antenna has satisfactorily acquired a normal radiation pattern at reshaped TM 1/2,2 mode. Most importantly, its high H-plane cross-polarization is dramatically reduced from −4.3 to −21.4 dB as compared to the traditional SPA at TM 1/2,0 mode.

A single planar inverted F-antenna is proposed employing two input ports to optimally power-combine the output signals of two nonlinear power amplifiers inside the metal-only low-loss antenna structure. High power-added efficiency (PAE) at back-off power levels is reached through a Doherty combiner architecture, where the optimal power combination is seen to generally require the synthesis of a nonsymmetric antenna input impedance matrix. The dual-fed antenna is compact and exhibits close to single-mode radiation properties; it has a relatively stable gain pattern despite the nonequal Doherty power amplifier (PA) output powers. An integrated active prototype has been designed, fabricated, and characterized over-the-air in both an anechoic and a reverberation chamber. Good agreement is observed and an uncertainty analysis is performed. The Doherty transmitter features a max-PAE of 58% at 2.14 GHz and a 6 dB back-off PAE of 52%; a minimum system power gain of 9.5 dB (max 12 dB); and a maximum system output power of 43.5 dBm.

A novel feeding method to dielectric loaded substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) horn antennas is presented, resulting in equal half power beamwidths (HPBWs) and low sidelobe levels (SLLs) in both the E-plane and H-plane. The concept is to synthesize a unique electromagnetic field distribution using four vertically stacked SIWs. In particular, a uniquely adjusted excitation of magnitudes and phases of the four SIWs is employed as the feeding of the SIW horn, emulating the field distribution of pyramidal horn antennas. This approach realizes the phase correction of the electric field at the horn aperture and concentrates the radiation to the endfire direction to reduce the sidelobes. To prove the concept, a stacked dielectric loaded SIW horn antenna fed by four TE 10 excitations was simulated at 35 GHz, yielding a gain of 15 dBi, an HPBW of 33° for both the E-plane and H-plane, and an SLL of approximately −24 dB for both the E-plane and H-plane. To achieve the desired excitation at each port, a narrowband SIW power splitter was designed to adapt a 3.5 mm coaxial connector to the four waveguide ports with the required phase shift. The entire feeding and antenna structure were fully substrate integrated and fabricated on Rogers 5880 panels. The measured radiation patterns show good agreement with the simulation with the best performance at 35.1 GHz.

Plasmonic nanoantennas are typically designed with RF-inspired rigorous parametric optimization processes that lack proper physical insights. In this article, we demonstrate a systematic optimization approach for nanoantennas based on characteristic mode analysis (CMA). A complex geometry, designated as split-ring two-wire antenna (SRA), is selected and optimized using the CMA technique. CMA identifies the dominant modes of the structure at the frequency of interest as well as explains the dependence of the modes on the structure’s shape, size and material properties. These insights from CMA have been used in this study to efficiently optimize SRA shape, size, and material which yield more than 700% near-field intensity enhancement (NFIE) at the desired operating frequency. This proposed CMA-based optimization method can be adapted easily for many other nanoantenna applications, facilitating the development of improved nanostructures.

In this article, a compact low-profile antenna for octa-band unbroken metal-rimmed smartphone applications is proposed. The antenna consists of a capacitive coupling rectangular vertical plate and two new-type extended ground branches. For lower frequency, the LTE700, GSM850, and GSM900 bands are provided by the bezel mode which is generated through capacitive coupling excitation of a rectangular vertical plate to the bezel. For upper frequency, the DCS, PCS, UMTS, LTE2300 and LTE2500 bands are covered by the multiple modes of two ground branches. With the proposed structure, the operating bands can be expanded and optimized simply. All the mentioned bands are achieved in the size of ( $70 \times 7 + 20 \times 2$ ) $\times $ (1.5 + 0.8) mm 3 on the 130 mm $\times \,\, 70$ mm system board. The antenna is fabricated and measured to verify this proposal. The tested results include reflection coefficient, radiation patterns, efficiency, and gain.

A wideband circularly polarized (CP) waveguide array antenna is proposed in this article. The proposed array antenna consists of four antipodally ridged elements and a compact feeding network with two orthogonal septa inserted to a stepped cavity. Both the components are wideband and they can work independently or together. The proposed topology gives a good solution to feed a $2 \times 2$ waveguide subarray which is the basis of large-scale arrays. It exhibits a larger working bandwidth than the array antennas fed by high-order mode cavities. A prototype is fabricated using 3-D printing and milling technologies. Measured results demonstrate a bandwidth of 40.3% from 9.9 to 14.9 GHz, in terms of the reflection coefficients less than −15 dB and the axial ratios smaller than 3 dB. An expanded $8 \times 8$ CP array antenna is explored based on the proposed $2 \times 2$ subarray to show the potentials of our design, and a total efficiency over 78% within a bandwidth of 38.7% is obtained by simulation.

This article presents randomly grouped subarray techniques to reduce the number of phase shifters in a 2-D phased array while maintaining a certain scan range in the azimuth and elevation planes and keeping sidelobes below a specified level. It is shown that controlling random groups of elements in such a manner suppresses these grating lobes and allows the use of fewer phase shifters. Guidelines for finding the best partition of a phased array into random subgroups are presented. It is shown that 75% reduction in phase shifters can be achieved while maintaining a 40° scan range in the azimuth plane, 15° scan range in the elevation plane, and keeping −10 to −12 dB sidelobes without tapering and with 6 dB taper. Other partitions are also presented with up to 88% reduction in phase shifters while maintaining a 5° scan range in elevation. Measurements on a $16\times16\,\,2$ -D phased array at 14 GHz are used to confirm the performance of randomly partitioned phased arrays. Application areas are in arrays with limited scan angle in the elevation plane, such as automotive radars, aircraft landing systems, and point-to-point communication systems.

Design of compact wideband circularly polarized (CP) antennas is challenging due to the necessity of simultaneous handling of several characteristics [reflection, axial ratio (AR), and gain] while maintaining a small size of the structure. Antenna redesign for various operating bands is clearly more difficult yet practically important because intentional reduction of the bandwidth (e.g., by moving the lower edge of the operating band up in frequency) may lead to a considerable size reduction, which can be beneficial for specific application areas. This article proposes a rigorous approach to rapid redesign of miniaturized CP antennas involving inverse surrogate models and fast electromagnetic (EM)-based parameter tuning. Our methodology allows for a precise control of the lower operating frequency of the CP antenna (both in terms of the impedance and AR bandwidth) and accomplishing the geometry parameter scaling at an extremely low cost of a few EM analyses of the structure at hand. Our methodology is demonstrated by redesigning a compact wide slot CP antenna in the range of 3.2–5.8 GHz. The proposed approach can be used for fast rendering of the bandwidth/size tradeoffs (the footprints obtained for the verification structure range from 783 to 482 mm 2 ), thus determining the most suitable designs for particular applications. The numerical findings are experimentally validated.

A low-profile differentially fed dual-polarized antenna with high gain and isolation is proposed for fifth-generation (5G) microcell communications. By introducing two pairs of symmetrical meandering conductors to connect both ends of the radiating cross slots, a compact-size antenna with wide bandwidth can be achieved. By further adopting an artificial magnetic conductor-backed (AMC) reflector that is arranged below the radiating patches with a distance of 6 mm, the antenna profile can be reduced from $0.25\lambda _{c}$ to $0.13\lambda _{c}$ (where $\lambda _{c}$ is the free-space wavelength at the center frequency), while both the gain and frequency bandwidth are also enhanced. Furthermore, owing to the orthogonal differentially fed structure, the antenna element displays a high port isolation of 37 dB. Finally, by meticulously designing the feeding network, much narrower beamwidth can be yielded, and hence, the unidirectional gain is further improved. The measured results show that a lower-frequency bandwidth of 13.5% (3.26–3.73 GHz) with a gain of 15.7 ± 0.1 dBi and upper-frequency bandwidth of 7.6% (4.68–5.05 GHz) with 15.55 ± 0.05 dBi gain can be obtained by the proposed antenna array. In addition, port isolation better than 28 dB and stable radiation patterns can be achieved. With the aforementioned characteristics, the proposed antenna is a good candidate for future 5G microcell communications.

A composite right/left-handed (CRLH) leaky-wave antenna (LWA) can effectively scan the radiation beam from backward-to-forward direction. However, in most cases, a large range of frequency sweep is required to achieve a wide-angle beam scan, which could limit their applications. An in-depth study is conducted on an equivalent circuit model for a CRLH LWA unit cell to find the controlling parameters on the frequency sweeping range. A systematic design guideline is given for a CRLH LWA for a wide-angle beam scan in a flexibly chosen frequency range. It is shown that beam scanning by sweeping frequency in a target range can be achieved by systematically designing the unit cell parameters. To verify our approach, a novel CRLH unit cell is developed and used to design an LWA for a wide-angle beam scan in a narrow frequency range. Finally, the concept is validated through realization of the antenna and its measurement. The measured results show that the antenna prototype can scan its beam from −56° to +51° when frequency sweeps from 5.1 to 6.11 GHz (i.e., 18.02% of fractional bandwidth).

An antenna capable of directly phase modulating a radio frequency (RF) carrier is discussed, designed, and measured as both an antenna and a modulator. Access point densification for the Internet of Things will be expensive in part due to the cost and inefficiency of amplifying waveforms with large peak-to-average power ratios for downlink transmission. Directly modulating at the antenna means only a carrier wave has to be amplified, reducing the cost of densification. Here, reconfigurable frequency selective surfaces are suggested as phase modulators. The design process for producing a phase modulating antenna is detailed, and a prototype is fabricated that is capable of up to 8-PSK modulation with 5.3 dB variation in constellation points and a peak gain of 2.3 dB. When implemented in an end-to-end communications system, the antenna exhibits only 1.5 dB drop in performance compared with instrument grade modulation in an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel.

A simple single-layer reconfigurable leaky-wave antenna (LWA) is presented that has polarization agility and beam-scanning functionality. This LWA system realizes a scanned beam that can be switched between all of its linear polarization (LP) and circular polarization (CP) states using only one dc biasing source. A slot-loaded substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW)-based LWA is first explored to attain CP performance with continuous beam scanning through broadside. This CP LWA realizes a measured CP performance with a 3 dB gain variance within 2.75–3.35 GHz for scan angles ranging from −28.6° to +31.5°. A row of shorted stubs is then incorporated into the CP LWA to obtain similar LP performance. Finally, by introducing p-i-n diodes into this LP LWA configuration to facilitate reconfigurable connections between the main patch and the shorted stubs, the radiated fields can be switched between all of its CP and LP states. The measured results of all three antennas confirm their simulated performance. It is demonstrated that the main beam of the polarization-reconfigurable LWA can be scanned from −31.5° to +17.1° with gain variations between 9.5 and 12.8 dBic in its CP state and from −34.3° to +20° with them between 7.8 and 11.7 dBi in its LP state.

Wearable electrically small loop antennas (ESLAs) are introduced to monitor joint flexion and rotation while overcoming limitations in the state-of-the-art. The reported approach is not restricted to laboratory environments, does not suffer from integration drift and line-of-sight, and does not impede natural movement. Our previous work introduced wrap-around coils that addressed the challenges above but were limited to monitoring joint flexion. In contrast, a new class of ESLAs is herewith proposed, placed longitudinally across the joint, and operated at 34 MHz to monitor both flexion and rotation. An added advantage versus our previous design is a remarkable improvement in flexion angle resolution: the transmission coefficient dynamic range for 0° – 100° flexion improves by 18.8 dB in this article. Two ESLAs are shown to accurately detect flexion/rotation for angular resolutions up to 10°. However, if higher resolution is desired, ambiguities arise. To tackle this, a three-ESLA system with integrated post-processing is proposed that achieves resolution as high as 2°. Simulations and in vitro experiments are in excellent agreement. Guidelines for system design suited to diverse applications are discussed, and conformance with safety standards is ensured. In future, ESLAs can be seamlessly integrated in garments, enabling transformative benefits to healthcare, sports, and beyond.

This article presents the electromagnetic (EM) wave routing technique using single-epsilon-high (single-EH) anisotropic medium to generate dual-beam radiation at 28 GHz band for next generation communication systems. This technique is implemented using SIW dipole antenna loaded with the single-EH anisotropic medium realized using modified asymmetric electric- LC (ELC) metamaterial unit cell loaded vertically in front of the radiator. The technique is first verified using simulations and then practically realized, and the results are in good agreement with the predicted theoretical results. The effect of the thickness of the media loading the antenna is investigated and dual-beam radiation in the frequency band 26–31 GHz is obtained by choosing the appropriate number of ELC-slabs. The measured results confirm 26–31 GHz impedance bandwidth and dual-beam radiation directed along 50° and 130° with 8 dBi beam peaks.

A compact folded-patch antenna with a dimension of 45 mm $\times45$ mm $\times3.2$ mm ( $0.137\lambda \times 0.137\lambda \times 0.0097\lambda$ ) is proposed for on-metal applications. A T-shaped L-probe is employed for feeding the top-loaded radiating folded patch. It is found that good impedance matching can be easily achieved between the tag antenna and the microchip with the use of the T-shaped feeder. Also, the maximum power transmission coefficient can be significantly enhanced from 0.45 to 1. By adjusting some of the design parameters, the tag’s footprint area can be effectively reduced by 50% while maintaining considerably good read performance. The proposed tag antenna can not only radiate efficiently with a high radiation efficiency of 73.8% but also be read from a long read distance of 19 m when placed on a 20 cm $\times20$ cm metal plate with reference to a transmitting power of 4 W EIRP.

We propose a hybrid dispersion compensation method to design wideband fixed-beam leaky-wave antennas (LWAs), with the tilting angle customizable in both forward and backward quadrants. In a previous work, a triangular dispersive prism constituted by metallic pins was presented to compensate for the dispersion of traditional LWAs and achieve a squint-free radiation in a relative bandwidth of 20%. However, that design suffered from the drawbacks of large geometry and limited angular range. To overcome these limitations, here a broadband gradient metasurface based on geometric phase theory is loaded in front of the prism to customize the radiation angle and reduce the total prism size. In addition, a novel ridged gap waveguide is employed to improve the linearity of LWA dispersion, which is beneficial to maintain the bandwidth of LWA with reduced size. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the excellent performance of the designed antennas. One antenna radiates at an angle of 39.5° in a squint-free bandwidth of 20%, but the prism size is decreased to a quarter of the original one, while the other realizes a broadside radiation with a squint-free bandwidth of 18%. Good agreement is exhibited between simulated and experimental results. The proposed method can be further extended to compensate for the dispersion of antenna arrays and improve the angular stability of the radiation beams in a large frequency band.

A low pulling effect self-isolated harmonic active radiator operating around 28 GHz is proposed, investigated, and demonstrated in this article. Thanks to the inherent self-isolation property of a feedback loop of the proposed active radiator, a superiority of pulling effect mitigation, harmonic output, and simple structure is achieved. As part of the loop, a partially air-filled dual-mode substrate integrated waveguide cavity with a dielectric-loaded broadside slot is designed to realize the functions of resonators, harmonic diplexers, and antennas concurrently. The radiator oscillates at a fundamental frequency which is set by the first mode of the cavity resonator, and the generated second harmonic signal is extracted and radiated by the diplexer and antenna functions, respectively. Self-isolation is achieved because a pulling signal is attenuated by the synergetic effect of the reverse isolation and harmonic separation of the loop amplifier and diplexer, respectively. Measured results of a fabricated prototype show a maximum equivalent isotropic radiated power of 15 dBm at 28.15 GHz and a phase noise of −108 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. Load pulling and injection pulling are reduced by a factor of 10 and 17, respectively, compared with an active radiator transmitting a fundamental signal around 28 GHz. Such a robust and compactly integrated structure is a good candidate for low-cost millimeter-wave Internet-of-Things applications in connection with identification, sensing, tracking, and communication.

An approach toward designing and building of a compact, low-profile, wideband, unidirectional, and conformal imaging antenna for electromagnetic (EM) head imaging systems is presented. The approach includes the realization of a custom-made flexible high-permittivity dielectric substrate to achieve a compact sensing antenna. The developed composite substrate is built using silicon-based poly-di-methyl-siloxane (PDMS) matrix and microscale of aluminium oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) and graphite (G) powders. Al 2 O 3 and G powders are used as fillers with different weight-ratio to manipulate and control the dielectric properties of the substrate for attaining better matched with the human head and reducing antenna’s physical size while keeping the PDMS flexibility feature. Using the custom-made substrate, a compact, wideband, and unidirectional on-body matched antenna for wearable EM head imaging system is realized. The antenna is configured as a multi-slot planar structure with four shorting pins, working as electric and magnetic dipoles at different frequency bands. The measured reflection coefficient (S11) shows an operating frequency band of 1–4.3 GHz. The time-average power density and the amplitude of the received signal inside the MRI-based realistic head phantom demonstrate a unidirectional propagation and high-fidelity factor (FF) of more than 90%. An array of 13 antennas are fabricated and tested on a realistic 3-D head phantom to verify the imaging capability of the proposed antenna. The reconstructed images of different targets inside the head phantom demonstrate the possibility of utilizing the conformal antenna arrays to detect and locate abnormality inside the brain using multistatic delay-multiply-and-sum beamforming algorithm.

Electrodynamic characteristics of a straight strip antenna located at a plane interface of a uniaxial metamaterial and an isotropic magnetodielectric are studied using the integral equation method. The antenna is perpendicular to the anisotropy axis of the metamaterial filling the half-space on one side of the interface and is excited by a given voltage. The cases of metamaterials with hyperbolic and nonhyperbolic dispersion are considered. A closed-form solution for the current distribution of an infinitely long strip is obtained and the input impedance of such an antenna is found. Based on this solution, the limits of applicability of the transmission line theory for determining the characteristics of the antenna are established and a generalization to the case of a finite-length strip antenna is discussed.

We present the design, manufacture, and measured performance of a dielectrically loaded quad-ridge flared horn (QRFH) feed for decade bandwidth radio astronomy application. The introduction of the dielectric load improves the QRFH beamwidth control in H-plane at the mid and upper frequency range. Consequently on the reflector, illumination efficiency, phase efficiency, and the intrinsic cross-polarization ratio (IXR) have been improved. The dielectric load is made from homogeneous low-loss polytetrafluoroethylene and has a low profile with a cylinder shape for simple installation at the center of the QRFH. The dielectrically loaded QRFH presented here covers 1.5–15.5 GHz with a calculated average aperture efficiency above 50% on a f/D = 0.3 prime-focus reflector. We present a calculation of system noise temperature and sensitivity for the QRFH on a 100 m prime-focus reflector. Measured beam patterns of the QRFH are in good agreement with the simulations over the full frequency band. The input reflection coefficient was predicted to be below −10 dB across the bandwidth. We present a tolerance analysis that explains why the measured one deviates.

In this article, a class of wideband transmit arrays (TAs), composed of cascaded anisotropic impedance surfaces (AISs), for circularly polarized (CP) multibeam generation from a single feed horn are reported. The dispersionless phase compensation is achieved by the Berry phase (BP) via imposing a spatially dependent rotation angle on the TA unit cells. A homogenized model for the BPTA unit cell is proposed and utilized for obtaining a wideband response by tailoring the dispersive properties of the AIS layers. Two modeling methods, an analytical vectorial field analysis and a full-wave strategy incorporating the homogenized model, were employed to efficiently evaluate the performance of the BPTAs. In order to validate the proposed unit cell and the modeling methodologies, a Q-band single-beam BPTA is demonstrated, which achieves a peak gain of 30.2 dBi and a 1 dB bandwidth of 11.1% within which the axial ratio is smaller than 2 dB. Furthermore, by employing the intersection approach for pattern synthesis, several Q-band BPTAs supporting multiple concurrent symmetric/asymmetric CP pencil beams and circular-shaped flat-top beams are designed. A BPTA prototype for producing quad CP pencil beams with unequal gain values was fabricated and characterized, yielding good performance with an overall operational bandwidth of about 11%. The proposed BPTAs are promising candidates for point-to-multipoint communication and point-to-multiregional coverage in wideband millimeter-wave communications for wireless and satellite applications.

An energy-efficient 5G phased array incorporating a novel vertically polarized (V-pol) endfire planar folded slot antenna (PFSA) for user devices (UE) is presented. First, we analytically amend existing millimeter-wave (mmWave) hybrid beamforming architectures that have precluded the uniqueness of 5G antennas and UEs. The total power consumption of the derived switchable 5G UE antenna system is estimated to be reduced by approximately 70% in comparison with a recently reported fully digital mmWave 5G UE antenna system under identical conditions. This is attributed to the ability to deactivate certain RF chains based on the directive nature of antenna elements. The PFSA featuring a height profile of less than 1/ $9~\lambda _{ {0}}$ is derived from a planar folded slot structure. The designed and fabricated $1\times 4$ PFSA array features an impedance bandwidth of approximately 4 GHz with a center frequency of 37–39 GHz and the gain of 7.7 dBi with antenna efficiency of 94.12% at 39 GHz. An mmWave 5G beamforming module is demonstrated using the presented energy-efficient 5G beamforming architecture and V-pol endfire PFSA array. The fabricated module achieves a measured EIRP of 18.2 dBm and a scanning range of ±50° in azimuth at 28 GHz.

In this article, the scan blindness in a T-printed dipole is analyzed, and an elimination strategy is proposed. First, the main cause of scan blindness is analyzed. The scan characteristics are obtained using an active element pattern (AEP) with an infinite rectangular lattice arrangement. Based on the propagation of a guided wave along the antenna row and the electric-field ( $E$ -field) distribution observed during simulations, an equivalent circuit model for a unit cell of the T-printed dipole is obtained. A quasi-transverse electromagnetic (TEM) guided wave is predicted using the dispersion relation curve obtained from the equivalent circuit, and it is proven that the calculated curve is in good agreement with the eigen mode simulations and measured trajectory of the scan blind angle, for different frequencies. Next, slits and stubs are introduced as parasitic structures to eliminate the scan blindness and improve the antenna scan range. To confirm the effects of these parasitic elements, a linear array simulation is performed, which confirms the suppression of a quasi-TEM guided wave. Analysis of the active reflection coefficient and dispersion diagram indicates that the scan characteristics have been improved by the addition of parasitics. Four types of array prototypes are fabricated and their measurements validate the scan blindness prediction and confirm the proposed mechanism of scan blindness and its improvements.

In this article, we investigate the radiation and impedance properties of arrays of tilted dipoles. A spectral periodic method of moments (MoM) is developed for the analysis of infinite arrays with arbitrarily tilted dipole elements, in free space or with a backing reflector. With the aid of this analysis method, the radiation characteristics of arrays of stacked dipoles over a ground plane are studied, explaining the variation of the patterns as a function of the interelement distance and the angle of inclination of the elements. Finite linear arrays of tilted dipoles are also investigated, to assess the dependence of the array characteristics on the number of elements. The developed method can be used to design arrays with nonsymmetric radiation patterns for angular filtering or pattern shaping.

An endfire circularly polarized (CP) complementary antenna array is proposed for 5G applications. The proposed antenna is realized using a single-layered printed circuit board (PCB) with plated-through-hole technology and metal blocks. The antenna element consists of an open-ended substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW), an electric dipole, a double-sided parallel-strip line (DSPSL), and two metal blocks. It is simple in configuration and can achieve wide impedance and axial ratio (AR) bandwidths, stable gain and radiation patterns, and low back radiation. To increase the gain, a $1 \times 8$ antenna array is formed by integrating eight antenna elements with a planar 1–8 SIW feed network. The measurement results show that the proposed array can achieve an overlapping impedance and AR bandwidth of 23.8% from 56.3 to 71.5 GHz with an endfire left-handed CP (LHCP) gain from 14 to 15.3 dBic. The proposed array possesses all the salient features of the complementary source in symmetric and stable radiation patterns, low back radiation, and wide bandwidth.

This article presents an enhanced single-sideband time-modulated phased array (ESTMPA) using modulating pulses with stepped waveforms. Based on the in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) complex modulation technique, this phase-only weighting array generates a scanning beam at the 1st sideband. The proposed modulating pulses realized through a reconfigurable power divider in I/Q time modulator can avoid the power loss from the switches during switch-OFF state and eliminate the maximum undesired sideband—the 5th harmonic in STMPA. As a result, it brings a power spectrum with less undesired sidebands, lower sideband level (−16.9 dB), higher harmonic efficiency (94.96%), and wider allowable signal bandwidth (eight times as wide as that of the conventional time modulated array). To experimentally verify the feasibility of the proposed design, a wideband enhanced I/Q time modulator and its corresponding eight-element ESTMPA are designed and manufactured. A detailed study on the effect of the magnitude and phase deviations in the circuit and the transition period of modulating pulse are presented. The measured results of power spectrum and radiation pattern have a good agreement with the simulated ones.

New electromagnetic (EM) structures are demonstrated to realize low-radar-cross section (RCS) antennas by making effective use of frequency-selective absorber (FSA). According to the well-known reciprocity principle, the two-layered FSA can be considered as an actual receiving antenna and then transformed to a circularly polarized (CP) antenna. At the radiation state, a truncated patch resonator on the bottom layer is fed by a coaxial probe so as to produce CP wave, and it further excites the slots on the upper layer, resulting in its radiation toward free space, and when the antenna at the stealth state, the detective incident wave can be effectively absorbed outside the radiation band, thus achieving RCS reduction. The design strategies are then explained and verified with the aid of the corresponding equivalent circuit models. Two examples of $2 \times 2$ and $4 \times 4$ antenna arrays were designed to validate the flexibilities of the proposed design method. Finally, the $4 \times 4$ antenna array was fabricated and measured, and reasonable agreement is achieved.

In this article, we consider the problem of beampattern synthesis with sidelobe control using constant modulus weights. We specifically focus on two applications, i.e., notching and sidelobe-level (SLL) control (SLC). The considered problem is a challenging NP-hard due to the employed constant-modulus weights. Here, we convert the problem into an intermediate form by incorporating auxiliary variables and changing the form of the constant modulus. Then, we decompose the intermediate form into subproblems of single constraint each. Finally, we propose an iterative solution following the alternate direction method of multipliers (ADMM) and Proximal frameworks. The proposed solution solves the original problem by iteratively solving the subproblems in coordinated logical order. Importantly, it combines the convergence speed of ADMM and convergence property of Proximal methods. In addition, it always satisfies the constant modulus constraint. The solution has a significant contribution to mitigate interference using notching and to realize RadCom. Simulation results show that the proposed solution has a better performance in terms of computational speed, notching, and constant SLL than the previous works.

In this article, we studied the characteristics of multi-mode propagation and electric field distribution for a single layered and multi-layered periodic infinite-length square chain structures. We also studied the characteristics of mode propagation in silver and dielectric circular-rod chain structures. This article examines three modes of propagation in three Bragg propagation periods of a square chain structure. Each mode exhibits different forms in each of the three propagation periods, including the propagation, leaky, and cut-off modes. We also consider multiple complex characteristics. For example, the directions of wave and energy propagation paths have two forms: syntropy and reverse (one-way and two-way). The leaky wave has a variety of distribution states, for instance, attenuation and divergence. By analyzing these new physical properties, we have established a solid foundation for better development and application of leaky antennas and other applications. The method in this article was designed and validated for general metal structure applications.

This article focuses on the design of a transparent circularly polarized (CP) antenna subarray integrating with Cube satellite’s (CubeSat’s) solar panels. The subarray antenna employs two techniques including the Fabry–Perot cavity (FPC) and sequential rotation-feeding network. These techniques are used to generate CP along with a high level of directivity over a broad bandwidth. The main aim here is to propose a multifunctional antenna with the high radiation properties and the capability of power harvesting, simultaneously. To harvest power using a solar panel, the transparency requirement should be satisfied. Hence, the proposed design is sputtered with the thin layer of indium–tin–oxide (ITO) with a thickness of 200 nm. However, it seems to be sacrificed a large amount of conductivity at the frequency band of interest (x-band). Correspondingly, the performance of conductivity and transparency for both the materials of ITO and copper (Cu) as coated on the proposed design is determined. Alternatively, as an optically transparent conductor (OTC), a combination of both coating layers, including ITO and Cu with thicknesses of 200 and 5 nm, respectively, is applied. In the scattering point of view, the proposed design is also capable of suppressing the radar cross-section (RCS) for the space missions with the aim of space-based observations.

A novel iterative convex optimization approach is proposed for the synthesis of low-sidelobe 4-D heterogeneous arrays in the presence of mutual coupling effect. To realize wide bandwidth and wide-angle scanning, a tightly coupled dipole element (TCDE) is selected as the basic element. Due to the strong coupling between antenna elements, the active element pattern (AEP) and active reflection coefficient (ARC) are included in the proposed approach in order to evaluate the overall mutual coupling and port matching. Specifically, a nonconvex programming problem in terms of the given maximum sidelobe level (SLL), the ARC or reflected power at the center frequency, and the given maximum sideband level (SBL) at sidebands is established. After the application of some mathematical transformations, the nonconvex programming problem is decomposed into a convex optimization problem at the center frequency and an iterative convex problem (ICP) at sidebands. Owing to the efficiency of the convex optimization, the two problems can be efficiently solved. The proposed approach is applied to synthesize low-sidelobe patterns while minimizing the SBL in a 32-element cone-shaped 4-D heterogeneous array. The simulated and measured results verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach and show the advantages (improved gain) of the heterogeneous array.

A thin laminated composite is proposed in this article for highly efficient microwave absorption at both high frequency and low frequency. It is composed of two layers of carbon-fiber-reinforced planar structure. In each layer, periodically arranged fiber array with the axes of the fibers parallel to each other is embedded into a ceramic matrix which is used to bind the fibers together and to provide necessary mechanical or chemical properties. Stacking up two layers of the planar structure with the fibers in different layers orientated into different directions produces a lamina which can be further parallely stacked up to provide the whole laminated material. The influence of the structural and electromagnetic parameters on the microwave absorption efficiency is first studied in detail with scattering matrix and boundary-mode matching method. Then the genetic algorithm and the sequential quadratic programming methods are used to form a two-step strategy based on the mode-matching method to optimize the structural and electromagnetic parameters for a highly efficient microwave absorption in both high-frequency and low-frequency bands. Numerical examples are also given to demonstrate the high absorption efficiency of the designed laminated material.

With the development of radar and communication system, frequency selective rasorber (FSR) is in great need. In this article, a flexible rasorber based on graphene is presented and investigated. A passband with small insertion loss and two absorption bands with high absorptivity below and above the passband is realized. Without welding lumped elements, our design can be applied to wide wavelength regions from microwave to low terahertz range, and also conformal situations. Besides, by integrating graphene sandwich structure (GSS), tunable transmission at the passband of the rasorber is realized, which makes our rasorber have the function of energy manipulation. For experimental demonstration, the rasorber prototype is fabricated and measured at microwave region; the fabricated sample shows good flexibility and good tunability, demonstrating that our radome has great application prospect in the field of electromagnetic stealth, compatibility, and protection.