Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The increasing demand for wireless communication systems has attracted significant interest in suitable wideband antennas. To characterize these antennas, conventional measurement techniques have been used for  frequency domain measurements in order to evaluate some performance such as the gain,  directivity and input return loss. However, the gain, directivity and return loss are scalar quantities and they do not indicate the phase variation of the far-field, which has a significant impact on the performance of wideband antennas.  Therefore, to examine the performance of the wideband antennas, not only frequency domain measurements are required, but also time-domain characterization is necessary. For this issue,  an RF measurement time-domain characterization setup for wideband antennas is proposed in this application. This system is mainly composed of two important instruments not available in our laboratory at INRS-EMT: a pulse RF generator and a high resolution digital-storage oscilloscope with very low rise time (60 ps). In order to avoid interference and multipath phenomena during these measurements, the proposed setup will be installed inside our anechoic chamber, which has already been built at INRS-EMT.  The main objective of  this experimental setup is measuring the minimal pulse distortion of the antenna under test by using a pulse generator with a short pulse and a digital-storage oscilloscope with high resolution. The requested instruments will complement pieces of the  equipment already available in our RF laboratory at INRS-EMT. The objectives of the present application are, (i) developing and testing new efficient  wideband antennas for future wireless communication systems, consistently with the specific needs of the high-technology Canadian industry, and (ii) train highly qualified personnel to respond to the scientific and technological challenges of our society.