Top RF & Microwave Industry News Stories of 2018

Imec Spin-off Unveils 60 GHz Phased Array System with 256 Antenna Elements

Pharrowtech, a spin-off initiative from imec, demonstrated a prototype of a 60 GHz active phased array at the Telecom Infra Project Summit in London (October 16-17, 2018). This solution paves the way for telecom OEMs to dramatically increase range and field of view of backhaul nodes, access points and home units. It is built using low-cost, high-volume chip and antenna technologies. This marks an important step towards accelerated deployment of cost-effective high-speed internet solutions for rural, urban and suburban environments. Click here to read more.

Roof-Top Antenna Cavity Could Replace Shark Fin Antennas in Cars

Today, cars enabled with high end communications technology, have become an important feature in the automotive industry. From helping guide users through satellite based navigation, to allowing them to make a call while driving. In the future, technology will not only play a greater role in road transport and mile to mile connectivity but also help improve road safety.

Antennas in cars are usually installed in what is known as the shark fin. This is a compact attachment that is mounted on the rear of the car’s roof. However, it is not possible to house a large number of antennas - a requirement for enabling high end communications of the future - in this kind of shark fin attachment. First of all, there is not enough space, and second, the antennas can interfere with one another when they are packed too tightly. This means that new options need to be found for housing antennas in cars. Click here to read more.

MIT Team Develops In-body GPS Like System to Help Monitor the Inside of a Human Body

Medical inspection of the internals of a human body often requires cutting open a patient or swallowing long tubes with cameras. This generally is a time consuming, invasive and expensive method. But what if doctors could get a better glimpse of the body in a less expensive, less invasive and more efficient manner?

A team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) led by Professor Dina Katabi are working on doing exactly that with an “in-body GPS" system called ReMix. The new method can pinpoint the location of ingestible implants inside the body using low-power wireless signals. These implants could be used as tiny tracking devices on shifting tumors to help monitor their movements. In animal tests, the team demonstrated that they can track the implants with centimeter-level accuracy. The team says that, one day, similar implants could be used to deliver drugs to specific regions in the body. Click here to read more.

New Antenna Evaluation Method for 5G Cellphones and Base Stations

Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), US, have developed a new method to evaluate and select optimal antenna designs for 5G cellphones, wireless devices and base stations. They believe this could boost 5G wireless network capacity and also reduce costs.

5G systems will avoid crowded conventional wireless channels by using higher, millimeter-wave frequency bands. Transmissions at these frequencies lose a lot of energy along the way, which weakens received signal strength. One solution is “smart” antennas that can form unusually narrow beams—the area in space where signals are transmitted or received—and rapidly steer them in different directions. Antenna beam-width affects wireless system design and performance. NIST’s new measurement-based method allows system designers and engineers to evaluate the most appropriate antenna beam-widths for real environments. Click here to read more.

Researchers Develop Electronic Skin Capable of Wirelessly Activating Soft Robotic Hands

A research team of Seoul National University has developed a skin-like electronic system that is soft, thin, light-weight and can wirelessly activate soft robots through a simple lamination process.

The team (Professor Yongtaek Hong, Jaeha Kim, and Kyu-Jin Cho) developed an electronic skin (e-skin) pair as a two-part, wireless soft driving system based on a fully printable "stretchable hybrid electronics" approach. One part is the e-skin for input sensing at the human side, and the other for activating soft robots (like a soft robotic hand). The e-skins are soft (same material for the target robot body), thin (<1 mm), and lightweight (~0.8 g) and also feature a spatially fragmented circuit configuration with a slew of miniature IC components (standard dimension, <1.5 mm x 1.5 mm). Therefore, they can be stretched and conformed onto a dynamic surface like human skin or soft robots. Click here to read more.

World’s First CMOS 140 GHz Radar-on-Chip System with Integrated Antenna

Imec introduced the first CMOS 140 GHz radar-on-chip system with integrated antennas on standard 28nm technology at the International Microwave Symposium 2018. This achievement is an important step in the development of radar-based sensors for a myriad of smart intuitive applications, such as building security, remote health monitoring of car drivers, breathing and heart rate of patients, and gesture recognition for man-machine interaction. Click here to read more.

Direct Communication Between Submarines and Airplanes Now Possible

MIT researchers have taken a step toward solving a longstanding challenge with wireless communication: direct data transmission between underwater and airborne devices.

Today, underwater sensors cannot share data with those on land, as both use different wireless signals that only work in their respective mediums. Radio signals that travel through air die very rapidly in water. Acoustic signals, or sonar, sent by underwater devices mostly reflect off the surface without ever breaking through. This causes inefficiencies and other issues for a variety of applications, such as ocean exploration and submarine-to-plane communication. Click here to read more.

Researchers Develop Spray-on Antennas

While the advent of next gen electronics and IoT does seems closer that ever before, one of the prime reasons of their delayed launch, according to researchers at Drexel, is seamlessly integrating antennas in to flexible "things". A recent breakthrough by researchers at Drexel's College of Engineering, has led to the development of spray on antennas. This new technology could make installing an antenna as easy as applying some bug spray. Click here to read more.

New Crystal Structure from Fujitsu Triples the Output Power of GaN Transistors

A newly developed crystal structure has proven to triple the output power of GaN transistors. It increases current and voltage in GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) effectively tripling the output power of transistors used for transmitters in the microwave band.

The GaN HEMT technology, developed jointly by Fujitsu Ltd and Fujitsu Laboratories, can be used in power amplifiers for equipment such as weather radars - by applying the developed technology to this area, it is expected that the observation range of the radar will be expanded by 2.3 times, enabling early detection of cumulonimbus clouds that can develop into torrential rainstorms. To expand the observation range of equipment like radars, it is essential to increase the output power of the transistors used in power amplifiers. With conventional technology, however, applying high voltage could easily damage the crystals that form a transistor. Therefore, it was technically difficult to increase current and voltage simultaneously, which then led to the adoption of high-output power GaN HEMTs. Click here to read more.

Super-Sensitive Radar Can Track & Identify Mosquitoes a Mile Away

China is ready to wage war on mosquitoes and is developing a super-sensitive radar that can detect the wing-flapping of a mosquito up to 2 kilometres away. This radar can be used to track migrating mosquitos and warn people about risks from diseases like malaria and zika. The scientist who wished to remain anonymous told the South China Morning Post that China is experimenting with its military radar technology to detect mosquitos which can eventually save millions of lives. Click here to read more.

First Wireless Flying Robotic Insect Powered by Laser Waves

Engineers at the University of Washington have been working to develop Insect-sized flying robots. These robots could help with time-consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks or a number of other applications. They can fly by fluttering tiny wings as they are too small to use propellers, like those used by drones. These robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inaccessible to big drones. Click here to read more.

Researchers Develop Origami Based Structure to Create Adjustable RF Tunable Filters

A new method developed by researchers uses an origami-based structure to create radio frequency filters that have adjustable dimensions. This enables the devices to change which signals they block throughout a large range of frequencies. The work was carried out by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The new approach to creating these tunable filters could have a variety of uses, from antenna systems capable of adapting in real-time to ambient conditions to the next generation of electromagnetic cloaking systems that could be reconfigured on the fly to reflect or absorb different frequencies. The team focused on one particular pattern of origami, called Miura-Ori, which has the ability to expand and contract like an accordion. Click here to read more.

New Quantum Radar System to Detect Stealth Aircrafts

Researchers at the University of Waterloo are developing a new technology that promises to help radar operators cut through heavy background noise and isolate objects - including stealth aircraft and missiles - with unparalleled accuracy.

In the Arctic, space weather such as geomagnetic storms and solar flares interfere with radar operation and make the effective identification of objects more challenging. By moving from traditional radar to quantum radar, scientists hope to not only cut through this noise, but also to identify objects that have been specifically designed to avoid detection. Click here to read more.

Navigation Without GPS is Possible

While the GPS can locate anything on Earth as long as the receiver is in the line of sight of multiple satellites, the location of the same device when indoors can be difficult. A team of researchers at the University of Utah have found a solution for this problem. The team has developed a suite of sensors and circuits that can be mounted to a boot (shoe) to determine its position with an accuracy of about 5 meters both indoors and outdoors, without using GPS. Click here to read more.