Events
Recent Invited Research Seminars
Speaker: Allan Williamson, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Seminar Title: Cousins in Research: Reactive Posts In Rectangular Waveguide and Frequency Selective Surfaces for Interference Mitigation
Details of two recent projects with which the presenter has been involved will be discussed; the analysis and modelling of probe tuning devices for application in high power industrial microwave applications, and the application of frequency selective surfaces to assist in the mitigation of interference in indoor wireless systems.
Speaker: Lutfi Albasha, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE
Seminar Title: Practical Considerations in the Design of Wideband VCO's: A case study for a DVB receiver
In this talk, circuit and system design criteria for wideband VCOs fabricated using CMOS technology will be presented. This will be within the context of a DVB direct conversion receiver designed for the mobile industry. The correlation between system specifications, technology limitations and circuit aspects will be critically examined and applied. The mindset of this work was not to proof a concept with a test chip, but to design for mass production. Frequency planning, phase noise and the PLL dynamics where the VCO is locked will be presented with practical view. Design parameters were examined for silicon durability under process, supply voltage and ambient variations. Novel circuitry that has contributed to solve some process limitations will be presented. Finally measured results of the fabricated chip will be compared to design values.
Recent Research Visitors
Visitor: Professor Jian Chen, School of Telecommunications Engineering, Xidian University, China
Cyclostationary Spectrum Detection in Cognitive Radios
With the rapid development of wireless communication, it becomes more important to address the spectrum scarcity problem. In the licensed spectrum band, users only utilize their designated resources partially, thus necessitating the need of cognitive radios (CR) which offers the promising feature of accessing the unused spectrum by dynamic spectrum management. In this paper, we are presenting the cyclostationary spectrum density detection method for estimation and spectral autocorrelation function technique to analyze the spectrum.
This technique is robust in a sense that it can detect active or licensed user signals blindly. For efficient spectrum detection Kaiser window function was used. The effect of the observational data length on signal detection is also included. A simulational analysis suggests that cyclostationary spectrum detection is optimal for signal detection having low signal-to-noise (SNR) values. For 10% false alarm probability, 90% detection probability of BPSK signals with SNR of -8 dB or greater was achieved.
Visitor: Dr Arthur Haigh, Ferranti Semiconductors, UK
Complex Permittivity and Permeability Profiling of Solids, Liquids and Particulate Materials
Dr Haigh specialises in the area of material measurements using microwave techniques. He has developed computer controlled measurement techniques for the evaluation of complex permittivity and permeability of solids, liquids and particulates. He has developed a set of coaxial and waveguide cells to characterise materials from RF through to millimetre wave frequencies. Separately, he has developed a microwave scanning profiler that in conjunction with an X-Y table can profile planar materials down to the nanoscale.
Visitor: Dr Martin Luna-Rivera, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México
Dr Luna-Rivera specialises in the area of signal processing for communication systems. He has particular interest in capacity achieving forward error correcting coding (FEC) techniques and multi-input multi-output (MIMO) techniques for wireless communications.
Visitor: Allan Williamson, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Prof Allan Williamson is a long standing member of the academic staff of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering where he has been a Professor since 1988. He has served two terms as Head of Department 1989-1994, and 2002-2008, as well as serving in other senior roles in the Faculty and University. He is on Research and Study Leave for 2008. Allan's research interests began with the modelling of waveguide passive devices and expanded to include mobile and cellular radio propagation and systems engineering. These activities now include interest in the industrial application of microwaves and RF engineering of indoor wireless system design.
Upcoming events
European Microwave Week 2011
Following the successful European Microwave Week event held in Manchester in 2006, this conference and exhibition will return to the GMEX/MICC centre during September or October 2011. This is the largest annual event dedicated to RF, Microwave, Radar and Wireless Technologies in Europe. The European Microwave Week provides an invaluable platform for the presentation of the latest technological developments and a forum for discussion on industry, scientific and technical trends. This year this conference is being held in Amsterdam during October, next year it is in Rome and in 2010 it will be held in Paris.