Short-range Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (SR-MIMO) transmission is an effective technique for achieving high-speed and short-range wireless communication. With this technique, however, the optimum aperture size of array antennas grows when the transmission distance is increased. Thus, antenna miniaturization is an important issue in SR-MIMO. In this paper, we clarify the effectiveness of using dual-polarized planar antennas as a means of miniaturizing SR-MIMO array antennas by measurements and analysis of MIMO transmission characteristics. We found that even in SR-MIMO transmission, the use of dual-polarized transmission enables higher channel capacity. Dual-polarized antennas can reduce by two thirds the array area that is needed to obtain the same channel capacity. For a transmission distance of two wavelengths, the use of a dual-polarized antenna improved the channel capacity by 26 bit/s/Hz while maintaining the same number of transmitters and receivers and the same antenna aperture size. Moreover, dual-polarized SR-MIMO has a further benefit when zero-forcing (ZF) reception without transmit beamforming is adopted, i.e., it effectively simplifies hardware configuration because it can reduce spatial correlation even in narrow element spacing. In this work, we confirmed that the application of dual-polarization to SR-MIMO is an effective way to both increase channel capacity and enhance transceiver simplification.

A post-wall center-feed waveguide consisting of T-junctions is proposed for reducing the slot-free area of a parallel plate slot array antenna. The width of the slot-free area is reduced from 2.6 λ0 to 2.1 λ0. A sidelobe level in the E-plane is expected to be suppressed lower than that of the conventional center-feed antenna using cross-junctions. The method of moments with solid-wall replacement designs initially the T-junctions and HFSS including the post surfaces modifies only the reflection cancelling post. We have designed and fabricated a 61.25 GHz model antenna with uniform aperture illumination. The sidelobe level in the E-plane is suppressed to -9.5 dB while that of a conventional cross-junction type is -7.8 dB. Also, we suppress it to -13.8 dB by introducing a -8.3 dB amplitude tapered distribution in the array of the radiation slot pairs.

Pulse radars with UWB signals are promising as a high-resolution imaging technique that can be used for the non-destructive measurement of surface details in industrial products such as antennas and aircraft. We have already proposed a fast 3-D imaging algorithm, SEABED, that utilizes a reversible transform between the time delay and the target boundary. However, data acquisition is time-consuming when obtaining an accurate image because it assumes a mono-static radar with 2-D scanning of an antenna. In this paper, we utilize linear array antennas and propose a fast and accurate imaging algorithm. We extend the reversible transform for mono-static radars to apply to bi-static radars to reduce the data acquisition time. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified with numerical simulations and experiments.

A novel two-dimensional (2D) beam scanning antenna array using composite right/left-handed (CRLH) leaky-wave antennas (LWAs) is proposed. The antenna array consists of a set of CRLH LWAs and a Butler matrix (BM) feeding network. The direction of the beam can be scanned two-dimensionally in one plane by changing frequency and in the other plane by switching the input ports of the BM. A four-element antenna array in the microstrip line configuration operating at 10.5 GHz is designed with the assistance of full-wave simulations based on the method of moment (MoM) and the finite-element method (FEM). The antenna array is fabricated and radiation characteristics are measured. The wide range 2D beam scanning operation with the angle from -30 deg to +25 deg in one plane by sweeping frequency from 10.25 GHz to 10.7 GHz and with four discrete angles of -46 deg, -15 deg, +10 deg, and +35 deg in the other plane by switching the input port is achieved.

We propose a wave analysis method for probe-fed Radial Line Planar Antennas (RLPAs) which yields an approximate solution for the aperture field distribution and scattering by loaded probes. Damping of electric power in the radial line due to radiation by antenna elements is included. The method can accommodate the effect of all conductors, including the terminating wall, by introducing the concept of equivalent posts. We have found good correspondence between the measured and calculated values of the aperture field distribution. The proposed method is effective for general geometries of probe-fed RLPAs.

An RF adaptive array antenna (RF-AAA) configured with variable capacitors is proposed. This antenna system can control the power combining ratio and phase value of received signals. In this paper, we focus on the diversity effects of RF-AAA. First, we show the design methodology of the combiner circuit to realize the effective combining. Second, the perturbation method and the steepest gradient method are compared for the optimization algorithms to provide fast convergence and suboptimum solutions among the variable circuit constants. Finally, in simulation, we show the RF-AAA can achieve diversity antenna gains of 7.7 dB, 10.9 dB and 12.6 dB for 2-branch, 3-branch and 4-branch configuration, respectively, which have higher performance than the selection combining.

Convergence of the iterative method based on the successive overrelaxation (SOR) method is investigated to solve the matrix equation in the moment analysis of array antennas. It is found this method can be applied to the sub domain method of moments with fast convergence if the grouping technique is applied and the over-relaxation parameter is properly selected, and the computation time for solving the matrix equation can be reduced to be almost proportional to the second power of the number of unknowns.

In cellular systems, a code division multiple access (CDMA) technology with array antennas can significantly reduce interferences by taking advantage of the combination of spreading spectrum and spatial filtering. We investigate performance of cellular CDMA systems through adopting two types of array antennas, switched beam forming (SBF) and tracking beam forming (TBF) in the base station. Through Monte-Carlo simulations, we evaluate average bit-error-rate (BER) and outage probability of the systems under log-normal shadowing channels with multi-cell environment. When we consider 2 beams and 4 beams per sector for the SBF method, it is observed that the TBF method gives at least 10% and 30% capacity improvement over the SBF method in aspects of 10-3 BER and 1% outage probability, respectively.

For future high-speed wireless communications using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), two major system requirements will emerge: throughput improvement and rich interference elimination. Because of its broadband nature and limited frequency allocations worldwide, interference from co-located wireless LAN's operating in the same frequency band will become a serious deployment issue. Adaptive array antenna can enhance the performance by suppressing the co-channel interference even when interference may have a large amount of multipath and also have similar received power to the desired signal. There are typically two types of adaptive array architecture for OFDM systems, whose signal processing is carried out before or after FFT (Fast Fourier Transform). In general, the pre-FFT array processing has low complexity, but in rich multipath and interference environments, the performance will deteriorate drastically. In contrast, the post-FFT array processing can provide the optimum performance even in such severe environments at the cost of complexity. Therefore, complexity-reduction techniques combined with the achievement of high system performance will be a key issue for adaptive array antenna applications. This paper proposes novel adaptive array architecture, which is a complexity-reduction technique using subcarrier clustering for post-FFT adaptive array. In the proposed scheme, plural subcarriers can be clustered into a group with the same spatial weight. Simulation results show that the proposed architecture is a promising candidate for real implementation, since it can achieve high performance with much lower complexity even in a rich multipath environment with low signal to noise plus interference ratio (SNIR).

Binary and ternary 5-bit programmable dispersion matrix, based on fiber Bragg reflectors, is built to control a two-channel receive/transmit beamformer at 1550 nm. RF phase measurements for the 32/31 delay configurations are presented. The programmable dispersion matrix is fully demonstrated and characterized for RF signals from 0.2 to 1 GHz.

This paper reviews research and development on the phased array antennas (PAAs) for several applications in Japan in over past two decades. First, the author shows the historical overview of the PAA for radar, satellite and mobile communication uses. Next, this paper introduces analysis methods for the PAA. It shows mutual coupling analysis methods and pattern synthesis methods for the PAA. Furthermore, the author discusses measurement methods for the PAA. Especially, he explains the rotating-element electric-field vector (REV) method for the Japanese original PAA calibration method. Finally, the author concludes and shows future PAA technologies.

We analyze the mutual coupling between two microstrip antennas (MSAs) with the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. It is suitable for substrates which have a complex configuration or include feed line structures. The mutual coupling between two MSAs on discontinuous orthogonal substrates is successfully calculated.