This paper proposes a novel blind multiuser detection scheme using CMA (Constant Modulus Algorithm) adaptive array. In the proposed scheme, the received signal is processed in two steps. In the primary step, only one user is captured by the CMA adaptive array, and at the same time, the other users' directions of arrival (DOA) are estimated. In the secondary step, initial weight vectors are set based on the estimated DOAs, and it processes with CMAs again to capture the other users in parallel. Thus, all the users are detected exactly and recovered separately. The Least-squares CMA is applied as an optimization algorithm to improve the performance of the proposed scheme, and the performances using the proposed scheme with linear arrays and circular arrays are discussed in detail. Simulation results are presented to verify the performance of the proposed scheme.

Broadening the frequency bandwidth of antennas has been one of the major subjects concerning antenna design technologies. Two of the major subjects for microstrip antennas, which appeared in the 1970s, have also been the broadening of the frequency bandwidth and the sharing of multifrequency bands. In this paper, we describe the broadband and multiband techniques of printed antennas, and show the configurations of realized broadband and multiband antennas and their characteristics. Here, resonant-type microstrip antennas, planar monopole antennas, fractal antennas and ultra-wideband printed antennas are introduced. The optimum design techniques using a genetic algorithm are introduced for developing broadband and multiband printed antennas. The usefulness of this method is verified by the simulation and experimental results of the fabricated planar monopole antenna which has ultrawide-band characteristics.

High-speed wireless communication systems have attracted much attention in recent years. To achieve a high-speed wireless communication system that utilizes an ultra-wide-frequency band, a broadband antenna is required. However, it is difficult to obtain an antenna that has uniform characteristics in a broad frequency band. Moreover, propagation characteristics are distorted in a multi-path environment. Thus, the communication quality tends to degrade due to the distortion in the frequency characteristics of the wideband communication system. This paper proposes a quasi-inverse filter (QIF) to improve the compensation effect for the transmitter antenna. Furthermore, we propose a method that employs the newly developed QIF that compensates for frequency characteristic distortion. We evaluate different configurations for the compensation system employing a pre-filter and post-filter in the wideband communication system. The effectiveness of the QIF in the case of severe distortion is verified by computer simulation. The proposed method is applied to a disc monopole antenna as a concrete example of a broadband antenna, and the compensation effect for the antenna is indicated.

The adaptive base station antenna is an attractive candidate for establishing high-speed and highly-reliable wireless communication systems. From a commercial viewpoint, since the cost and complexity of adaptive antennas depend on the number of elements, optimizing the antenna configuration while considering the propagation environment is necessary to reduce the number of elements. This paper first presents the Angle of Arrival (AOA) characteristics of delayed waves in a street microcell environment, typically used in urban microcell systems. Then the antenna configuration and antenna spacing suitable for the street microcell are investigated utilizing bit error rate (BER) performance simulations using practical delay profiles and AOAs. The effectiveness of bidirectional elements with respect to the BER performance is also investigated. As the results, we found that broadside array with the spacing of 2.5 wavelengths is suitable for adaptive base station antennas for high data-rate wireless systems placed in a street microcell environment. We also found that bidirectional elements alleviate the BER degradation due to the grating lobe of the antenna with wide element spacing without increasing the antenna size.

This paper proposes a novel configuration of an elevated base station using an adaptive array for TDMA systems, which can simultaneously decrease the CCI (co-channel interference) and form a circular cell. The proposed base station comprises two sets of transceivers and antenna arrays, and an adaptive beam control unit. The transceivers work in different time slots. The circular cell that suppresses the interference is achieved by integrating the pattern control of the two antenna arrays. The effectiveness of the proposed base station configuration is evaluated by field measurements using an adaptive array testbed. We confirm that the proposed base station achieves a channel capacity that is approximately 30% greater than that of a base station employing an omni-directional antenna and generates an omni-zone with reduced CCI in an actual microcell system. Furthermore, we confirm by computer simulation that the proposed base station establishes a communicable area that is approximately 1.8 times larger than that of a base station employing an omni-directional antenna.

This paper describes an equivalent circuit analysis of a meta-surface using a double-layered patch-type frequency-selective surface (FSS); the analysis considers the coupling between FSSs. Two types of double-layered structures are examined. One is a stacked structure and the other is an alternated structure. The results calculated using the equivalent circuit are in agreement with the results of the FDTD analysis. In addition, it is clarified that the stacked and alternated structures exhibit the common mode and the differential mode coupling, respectively. Moreover, experiments support analysis results for both stacked and alternated structures.

Sector antennas provide many advantages such as when combined with a narrow beam antenna, they become particularly effective in achieving high-speed wireless communication systems and they aid in simplifying the structure. These antennas have a drawback in that as the number of sectors increases, the antenna size rapidly increases. Therefore, downsizing the sector antenna has become a major research topic. A promising candidate is utilizing a phased-array type antenna; however, this antenna requires a phase-shifter circuit for beam scanning and generally the feeding circuit for this type of antenna is very complicated. To address these issues, we propose a self-selecting feeding circuit that is controlled by the same control circuit and is operated similarly to the conventional single port n-th throw (SPNT) switch. We fabricated a small cylindrical 12-sector antenna at 19 GHz employing the proposed feeding circuit for verification purposes. Furthermore, this paper clarifies the design method of this feeding circuit where the antenna diameter is 71 mm, and the results clearly show that the gain is more than 12 dBi.

Electric beam scanning reflector antennas provide beam scanning and pattern control, and can create narrow beams efficiently. However, they are not popular because the beam control circuit is large and difficult to realize. This paper proposes a new BFN configuration for cluster feeding of highly functional scanning antenna. The Enhanced PAttern Control nonswiTch (EPACT) BFN simplifies the beam control circuit and its control algorithm by using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) circuit, phase shifters, and a power divider. Furthermore, this paper proposes a design technique that uses modules to implement the FFT circuit and a method that optimizes amplifier placement to improve antenna efficiency. The design technique facilitates the manufacture of large-scale FFT circuits. The optimized amplifier location improves the antenna efficiency by eliminating the partial concentration of signal power.

Antennas for Japanese terrestrial microwave relay links have been developed since the1950's and put into commercial use up to now in Japan. In particular, the path-length lens antennas developed in 1953 represents a monumental achievement for terrestrial microwave relay links, and the offset antenna for 256 QAM radio relay links developed in 1989 has the best electrical performance in the world. This paper reviews the antennas for Japanese terrestrial microwave relay links that have historical significance and describes the antenna design technologies developed in Japan.

This paper clarifies the effects of metal wires placed around a Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) array with the goal of improving the channel capacity in near-field MIMO systems. Tests are performed on dual-dipole arrays with metal wires placed parallel to the dipoles. If the antenna elements have an appropriate half-power beamwidth (HPBW), there is a clear improvement in the channel capacity of the dual-dipole array. The metal wires are used to increase the multipath richness and the locations of the wires significantly impact the channel capacity. A significant increase in the channel capacity is observed even if only one metal wire is placed in the proper location. We verified the generality of applying a metal wire to improve the channel capacity and that the improvement in the channel capacity is approximately proportional to the number of metal wires.

This paper deals with a simple and practical power loss analysis simulator, which can actually estimate the total power losses of three phase voltage-fed Auxiliary resonant commutation pole snubber assisted soft switching inverter as well as hard-switching inverter. In order to estimate the switching power losses and conduction power losses of switching semiconductor power devices (IGBTs), which are incorporated into the inverters, the proposed practical simulator is making use of feasible switching power loss data tables and conduction power loss data tables, which are accumulated from the measured voltage and current operating waveforms of power semiconductor switching devices. The practical effectiveness of feasible simulation technique and power loss evaluations for power electronic conversion circuits and systems are confirmed by the simulation and experimental results basis under the conditions of soft switching and hard switching sinusoidal PWM schemes.

This paper proposes a new digital beamforming adaptive array antenna (DBFAAA) that is effective in severe multipath environments in which timing and carrier synchronization circuits cannot function ideally resulting in the DBFAAA losing control. The proposed DBFAAA has two stages. In the first, the DBFAAA captures the desired signal and establishes synchronization. In the second, the DBFAAA optimizes the beam pattern of the signal. The proposed configuration employs an eigenvector beam of the maximum eigenvalue in the first stage beam-forming. In addition, a fractionally-spaced-tapped-delay-line (FS-TDL) with real tap weights, which is placed after the beam-former, is applied to achieve timing synchronization. The behavior of the proposed DBFAAA for asynchronous sampling data is investigated and the results indicate that the proposed configuration enables asynchronous sampling at the A/D converter. A prototype of the proposed DBFAAA achieving 38-Mbps real-time data communication is introduced and the transmission performance is shown.

This paper describes a metasurface designed utilizing either a Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) that has band-pass characteristics or one with band-rejection filtering characteristics in order to clarify the relationship between the filtering characteristics of the FSS and the Perfect Magnetic Conductor (PMC) characteristics of the metasurface. The effects of the filtering characteristics of the FSS on the PMC characteristics of the metasurface are described. Calculation results confirm that a low profile metasurface can be achieved using these FSSs. In addition, the effects of the size of the metasurface on the PMC characteristics of the surface are shown.

This paper proposes a novel bidirectional rod antenna (BIRA) comprising a collinear antenna and parasitic wires as a base station antenna for a street microcell. The spacing between the collinear antenna and the parasitic wire, and the length of the parasitic wires, which are the design parameters obtaining a bidirectional pattern, are investigated using the moment method. The results show that wide spacing enlarges the bandwidth obtaining the bidirectional pattern, however it decreases the gain. Furthermore, to enlarge the bandwidth, a BIRA with arc parasitic plates whose radius is the same as that of the radome is also proposed. The configuration can be constructed using the same exterior as the BIRA with parasitic wires. It is also shown that the arc parasitic plates enlarge the bandwidth in proportion to the area projected onto the tangential plane at the center of the arc. Finally, a prototype of the proposed antenna is shown.

This paper proposes a novel adaptive array configuration that reduces high-power co-channel interference (CCI) by utilizing the difference in arrival times between CCI and the desired signal in asynchronous TDD systems. The proposed adaptive array extracts only the CCI and employs pre-null steering for only the CCI by utilizing the fact that only the CCI arrives during the guard time in asynchronous TDD systems. Since the proposed adaptive array enables us to apply the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) algorithm through synchronization with the desired signal using the output signal obtained by pre-null steering, high quality transmission can be achieved even in the presence of high-power CCI. Moreover, based on measurements using a fading simulator and field data, an adaptive array testbed exemplifying the proposed configuration is presented to show the reduction in the high-power CCI.

This paper proposes the Vector Evaluated GA-ICT (VEGA-ICT), a novel design method that employs the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to obtain the optimum antenna design. GA-ICT incorporates an arbitrary wire-grid model antenna to derive the optimum solution without any basic structure or limitation on the number of elements by merely optimizing an objective function. GA-ICT comprises the GA and an analysis method, the Improved Circuit Theory (ICT), with the following characteristics. (1) To achieve optimization of an arbitrary wire-grid model antenna without a basic antenna structure, the unknowns of the ICT are directly assigned to variables of the GA in the GA-ICT. (2) To achieve a variable number of elements, duplicate elements generated by using the same feasible region are deleted in the ICT. (3) To satisfy all complex design conditions, the GA-ICT generates an objective function using a weighting function generated based on electrical characteristics, antenna configuration, and size. (4) To overcome the difficulty of convergence caused by the nonlinearity of each term in the objective function, GA-ICT adopts a vector evaluation method. In this paper, the novel GA-ICT method is applied to downsize sector antennas. The calculation region in GA-ICT is reduced by adopting cylindrical coordinates and a periodic imaging structure. The GA-ICT achieves a 30% reduction in size compared to the previously reported small sector antenna, MS-MPYA, while retaining almost the same characteristics.

This paper proposes a novel bi-directional rod antenna comprising a narrow patch and parasitic elements for base station antennas of street microcell systems. It is shown that the parasitic elements improve the antenna efficiency of an ordinary bi-directional printed antenna and make it possible to form the antennas using conventional substrates. This paper also proposes a suitable configuration for the array and investigates radiation characteristics of the configuration. Finally, a prototype of the bi-directional rod antenna is presented and the effectiveness of the bi-directional antenna is evaluated.

This paper proposes a hardware configuration using only single pole dual throw (SPDT) switches to realize the previously proposed automatic calibration method using transmitting signals (ACT) for the adaptive array in TDD communication systems. The proposed configuration obtains the same calibration values as the conventional ACT does while reducing the number of switch branches. The transmission pattern using the proposed calibration method is also presented based on an experimental adaptive array testbed in an actual microcell environment. The experimental results show that the ideal radiation pattern formation is achieved by employing the proposed calibration method in an environment with a moving terminal station and where arriving co-channel interference exists.