Student Seminar Series – Session #2

We are pleased to announce the second session in our student seminar series. Two of our students will be presenting on  WednesdayMarch 16 from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm in NREF 1-003. 

Seminar #1: Mohammad Mahdi Honari – “Grooved Antennas On Printed Circuit Boards


Abstract

This work presents a new low profile aperture antenna with relatively high gain using substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) corrugated structures. It consists of a cavity excited by a transmission line and SIW grooves that produces good reflection coefficient and enhanced gain. By designing corrugated structure using constructive superposition of electric fields of patch and grooves, the antenna with high performance is achieved. In the proposed structure, three simple printed circuit boards for implementing a resonant transmission line and specific SIW structures are employed instead of waveguide feeder and grooves on metallic plate in conventional corrugated antennas. Removing the metallic plate reduces the weight and cost of the structure and provides ease of fabrication. Fabrication results show that the SIW grooves increase the antenna gain with respect to the simple slot antenna, significantly.

Biography

Mohammad Mahdi Honari received his B.Sc. degree from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran and his M.Sc. degree from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. He is currently a PhD student with the Intelligent Wireless Technology Laboratory, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is the recipient of the Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (AITF), PhD scholarship from June 2015. His research areas include linear/nonlinear design & analysis of RF/microwave/mm-wave circuits, broadband active integrated antennas, and phased array antennas.

Seminar #2: Stuart Barth – “A Uniplanar Metamaterial-Inspired Electromagnetic Bandgap Structure


StuartBarth_BioFig

Abstract

This work introduces a novel, uniplanar, electromagnetic bandgap structure.  Using transmission-line metamaterial techniques, a shielded, conductor-backed coplanar waveguide is periodically loaded with series capacitors and shunt inductors to support a backwards-propagating (left-handed) mode. Using multiconductor transmission-line analysis, it is shown that contra-directional coupling creates one or more bandgaps, which can be modelled very accurately with a proposed equivalent circuit. Fully-printable structures are designed and fabricated, and are shown to effect suppression of parallel-plate modes in one and two dimensions over electrically short distances.

Biography

Stuart Barth received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering in 2012 and 2015, respectively, from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, where he is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering. His current research interests include the study of multiconductor transmission-line RF/microwave circuits, dispersion engineering of periodic structures, fundamental electromagnetic theory, antenna radiation-pattern shaping, and the design of artificial materials for use in communications networks. Mr. Barth was awarded the IEEE AP-S Pre-Doctoral Research Award in 2014 for his ongoing research into electromagnetic bandgap structures for GPS antenna applications. He currently serves as the communications officer of the IEEE Northern Canada Section MTT-S/AP-S joint chapter.

Free pizza and refreshments will be served.