Resource Library

With the advent of connected smart devices, researchers and engineers  are exploring design tools and manufacturing processes that will help them develop smaller, more efficient integrated antennas for a wide range of applications. This article explores such an effort by the students of NC State University working with commercial antenna synthesis software and 3D printing.

The NI AWR Design Environment platform featured new capabilities in V14 of Microwave Office software that focus on expediting all stages of design from initial starts using powerful network synthesis to circuit/system and EM simulation technology for performance analysis, optimization, and verification.

Designing a millimeter-wave PA presents challenges from the extreme miniaturization of millimeter-wave circuits and the need to conserve signal power as much as possible by minimizing forward and reflected signal losses. This white paper examines the design challenges for practical millimeter-wave power amplifiers delivering the necessary power, linearity and efficiency for future 5G networks.

While preparing for IMS018 and our pending V14 release of NI AWR Design Environment software, I was reminded that this year marks the 20th anniversary of Microwave Office circuit design software hitting the show floor at what was then more commonly referred to as MTT.  This blog is the first in a series we plan to roll out this year to commemorate our history and innovation success.

In this article, a design flow is described that uses NI AWR Design Environment platform, specifically Microwave Office circuit design software, as well as a measurement technique for determining the input and output impedances of the matching networks, prior to RFPA turn on. Using this approach, excellent agreement between modeled and measured performance is achieved with a first-pass design.

The growing demand for wireless connectivity requires antenna solutions that are optimized for system performance, cost, and size. In addition, with the expected demand for design experience greatly exceeding the current supply of antenna engineers, an antenna synthesis approach that can create automated antenna designs in less time is very beneficial. This application example demonstrates how to use AntSyn antenna synthesis software to design and build a customized high-definition TV (HDTV) antenna by generating a set of antenna specifications such as frequencies, bandwidth, and gain, for planar antennas.

Sherry Hess, IMS 2018 WIM Co-Chair, discusses plans for the IMS 2018 Women in Microwaves event, titled “Women in Engineering: Academia, Defense, Industry, and Now Into BioTech.”