Antenna Progress Report
–Nitin Malhotra

WEEK 1: September 17 2002
Project: SDARS Integrated Front-End Reciver.
Group Members: Nitin Malhotra, Carlos Anaya and Kara Bendix.
Work on Informative Memo.

WEEK 2: September 24 2002
Work on Functional Description.

WEEK 3: October 29 2002
Research Antenna theory and design.
Reading Assignment: “(Ch 9)-Radiation and Antennas”, Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics -Ulaby

WEEK 4: November 5 2002
Parts assigned: Antenna-Nitin Malhotra; Low Noise Amplifier-Carlos Anaya; Filter Design-Kara Bendix;
System Integration-Nitin, Carlos, Kara.

System integration discussed-seek a compact unit comprising of the antenna, LNA and Down Converter.

Continued reading assignment.

WEEK 5: November 12 2002
Reading Assignment: “(Ch 4)-Antennas & Propagation for Wireless Systems”, Microwave & RF Design of Wireless Systems –David M. Pozar

WEEK 6: November 19 2002
Reading Assignment: (Pgs 727-736)-Antenna Theory-Analysis & Design-Balanis
Reading Assignment: “Circularly Polarized Microstrip Elements”, Antenna Engineering Handbook –Johnson & Jasik.
Information on commercial unit sought. Commercial unit is required to test and verify previous project’s results.

WEEK 7: November 26 2002
Reading Assignment: “Linearly & Circular Polarization”, Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics –Ulaby.

Commerical unit of Sirius Radio successfully installed in RF Lab.

WEEK 8: December 3 2002
Reading Assignment: “Circularly Polarized Aperture Coupled Patch Antennas for a 2.4 GHz RFID System”, Technical Feature,Microwave Journal–November, 1999.

WEEK 9: December 10 2002
Presentation 1: Dr. Shastry, Dr. Ahn, and Dr. Anakwa present.

WEEK 10: January 28 2003
Sirius signal received through commerical unit. Previous project hardware setup and tested also. Both signals plotted on the spectrum analyzer. Difference in readings due to the presence of the ALC in the commmerical unit.

WEEK 11: February 4 2003
Reading Assignment: “A Study of the Satellite Digital Audio Broadcast Systems”–Daniel R. Marunde.

Discussion: Microstrip theory, substrate vendors, system integration schemes.

Test: Previous antenna design-high VSWR of 5 at center frequency of 2.32625GHz.

Design: Concentrate on Probe-fed Antenna deisgns

WEEK 12: February 11 2003
Discussion: Microstrip theory, substrate vendors, system integration schemes.

Test: Previous antenna design-high VSWR of 5 at center frequency of 2.32625GHz.

Design: Concentrate on Probe-fed Antenna deisgns.

WEEK 13: February 18 2003
Revision of main concepts of patch antenna designs.

Design procedure for square patch design obtained from “Antenna Theory”, Balanis.

Design considerations for patch design kept in mind.

Reading Assignment: “Carver & Cavity Model”, PCAAD 4.0 Manual.

WEEK 14: February 25 2003
System integration schemes discussed.

Substrates’ data obtained from GIL Technolgies and Rogers Corporation.

C++ program written for calculating W, Ereff, L for each given substrate.

WEEK 15: March 4 2003
Kept VSWRmax=2.0 for antennas.

Debugging C++ program and double checking by hand calculations.

Presentation 2: RF Group present.

WEEK 16: March 11 2003
Calculations for different substrates made again as dimensions of patch are sought to be smaller than previous project’s antenna patch.

Cavity Model from PCAAD 4.0 program used to determine dimensions of square patch for a Linearly Polarization.

Substrate 1=TMM 4 Rogers, height=125mils, length=2.94cms, Er=4.5.

Substrate 2=TMM 6 Rogers, height=125mils, length=2.54cms, Er=6.

WEEK 17: March 25 2003
Reading Assignment: “Probe-Fed Patch Design”, Sainati’s Design Book.

Design considerations include relief hole and probe hole diameters.

CPPATCH program used to design for a “nearly” square patch with Circularly Polarization.

Zin depends on probe location on patch.

2 masks to be made-1^st with the “nearly” sqaure patch, 2^nd with the diameter of probe.

(Note: Wire diameter=Inner Conductor of Connector diameter)