Short Courses and Workshops

Presented by: Thomas E. Roth, Purdue University, Dong-Yeop Na, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Weng C. Chew, Purdue University, Zhen Peng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Paolo Rocca, University of Trento, Nicola Anselmi, University of Trento

Location: A 109 (OCC)

There is currently an explosive advancement in quantum information processing technology underway that has the potential to revolutionize society through the use of quantum computers, quantum communication systems, and quantum sensors that can outperform the best classical technologies. Antenna and propagation technologies are no exception, with many longstanding challenges potentially becoming addressable using these new quantum technologies. Further, because these emerging devices significantly involve electromagnetic effects there is an important role that classically-trained electromagnetic engineers can play in making these quantum technologies a reality. This course looks at both sides of this emerging technology space with the assumption that the students have no prior background in quantum physics. Specifically, the course looks at applications of different kinds of quantum computers to solve electromagnetic optimization problems in inverse scattering and antenna array analysis and design. We also discuss the fundamentals of quantum theory, with application toward building a description of the quantization of electromagnetic fields. These fundamentals are then extended to look at numerical algorithms for modeling various quantum electromagnetic effects in dispersive inhomogeneous media with applications for quantum communications and quantum sensors. The interactions of electromagnetic fields with superconducting circuit qubits are also covered to provide an understanding of the underlying operations occurring at the hardware level in one of the leading quantum computing architectures.

Dr. Thomas Roth is an Assistant Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His research focuses on multiscale and multiphysics electromagnetic modeling, particularly for quantum electromagnetic systems. He is well versed in the field of circuit quantum electrodynamics and the modeling of superconducting qubits.

Dr. Dong-Yeop Na is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering department at Pohang University of Science and Technology. His research interests are in the numerical simulation of quantum electromagnetic phenomena, such as the operation of a quantum beam splitter, nonlocal dispersion cancellation, and quantum imaging.

Dr. Weng Chew is a Distinguished Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He has over 40 years of experience in electromagnetics. His recent research interests are in fast algorithms and quantum electromagnetics.

Dr. Zhen Peng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign. His research interests include computational electromagnetics, statistical electromagnetics in complex environments, and in using quantum computers to solve electromagnetic optimization problems.

Dr. Paolo Rocca is with ELEDIA@UniTN and is an Associate Professor at the University of Trento. His research interests include unconventional antenna array design, as well as the use of quantum computers for solving these problems.

Dr. Nicola Anselmi is with ELEDIA@UniTN and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Trento. His research interests include analysis and synthesis of unconventional antenna arrays architectures for next generation communications (satellite and terrestrial) and radar/sensing applications in RF, optical, and quantum systems.

Presented by: Shahid Ahmed, Ansys Inc.

Location: B 110 (OCC)

The increased complexities of electrical and electronic equipment due to ultrawideband applications, antenna arrays for base stations and subsystems for 5G applications, indoor wireless communications for the large environment, and radar applications for autonomous self-driving vehicles, etc. have enabled the designers, engineers, and scientists to verify all the avenues of the electromagnetics before the design phase. With the given design constraints, computational simulations and visualizations have become the choice of virtual prototyping. This workshop will provide the power of industry-leading Electronics Workbench – Ansys HFSS for solving complex and challenging problems.

Dr. Shahid Ahmed is a Senior Application Engineer at ANSYS, Inc. His expertise ranges from Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) technology, microwave engineering, and electromagnetics to Multiphysics aspects of electrical and electronics engineering. In his work, Dr. Ahmed considers theoretical as well as experimental aspects and deals with hardware development and measurements as well as computational modeling and simulations. He has helped to solve complex engineering and multi-physics-based problems. Dr. Ahmed has published over forty papers in national and international journals and conference proceedings and has delivered several invited talks at conferences. Also, he has published a book on short pulse electromagnetics entitled “Electromagnetic Pulse Simulations Using Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method”. He is a reviewer for various prominent journals and magazines, SBIR/STTR proposals for the US Department of Energy, and has organized workshops. He has been a member of the IEEE for more than ten years. For his achievements in the diversified areas of engineering, he was elevated to Senior Member of the IEEE where he currently holds memberships in the society of the Antennas and Propagation. In honor of his achievements and accomplishments, the IEEE Hampton Roads Section presented him with the 2013 Outstanding Engineer Award.

Presented by: Mats Gustafsson, Lund University, Miloslav Capek, Czech Technical University in Prague

Location: C 124 (OCC)

The success of computational electromagnetics in recent decades stems from the possibility to numerically approach non-canonical scenarios, i.e., those unsolvable analytically. For this reason, numerical methods such as FEM, MoM, or FDTD are used and also available in powerful commercial simulators. They, however, typically focus on solving a problem in the meaning to compute fields and currents from given excitations. Many other techniques are available, with the system at hand discretized and characterized in terms of matrix operators. Modal decompositions decouple excitation from the properties of an obstacle. Fundamental bounds indicate the best possible performance. Shape and topology optimization schemes can isolate well-performing structures for given objective parameters. Mastering these techniques requires good knowledge of matrix algebra and its application to electromagnetism and optimization.

This short course summarizes recent advancements in evaluating fundamental bounds, inverse design, and modal decomposition. An efficient framework utilizing matrix formalism is necessary for all these diverse techniques. This formalism, including various techniques, tricks, and identities, will be presented.

The course offers a good balance between math, EM theory, algorithms, and applications. The applications will be demonstrated using Matlab codes presented by instructors. The participants will receive the presented codes and worksheets summarizing the theory. The presented materials will be accessible after the conference from a remote repository.

Dr. Mats Gustafsson received the M.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics 1994, the Ph.D. degree in Electromagnetic Theory 2000, was appointed Docent 2005, and Professor of Electromagnetic Theory 2011, all from Lund University, Sweden.

He co-founded the company Phase holographic imaging AB in 2004. His research interests are in scattering and antenna theory and inverse scattering and imaging. He has written over 100 peer-reviewed journal papers and over 100 conference papers. Prof. Gustafsson received the IEEE Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award 2010, IEEE Uslenghi Letters Prize Paper Award 2019, and Best Paper Awards at EuCAP 2007 and 2013. He served as an IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer 2013-15.

For detailed information see: https://elmag.fel.cvut.cz/matrixformalism-aps2023/

Dr. Miloslav Capek received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering 2009, the Ph.D. degree in 2014, and was appointed Associate Professor in 2017, all from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic.

Miloslav is a senior member of the IEEE. He has been a grant holder and member of a research team for several national and international projects, including projects funded by the Czech Science Foundation, the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, and European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST ASSIST, COST VISTA).

He leads the development of the AToM (Antenna Toolbox for MATLAB) package and serves as a vice-chair of EurAAP “Software and Modeling” working group. He is the author or co-author of more than 120 journal and conference papers. His current research interests include the area of electromagnetic theory, electrically small antennas, numerical techniques, and optimization.

For detailed information see capek.elmag.org

Presented by: Hisamatsu Nakano, Hosei University

Location: B 111 (OCC)

A communications network using circularly polarized (CP) antennas does not require polarization alignment between the transmitting and receiving antennas, whereas alignment is required when using linearly polarized (LP) antennas. So far, numerous types of CP antennas have been discussed for CP communications, such as the helical antenna, spiral antenna, patch antenna, and loop antenna. These CP antennas have been applied to modern wireless communications between vehicles and base-stations, vehicles and satellites, ships and base-stations, and so forth. This short course presents recent progress in CP natural and metamaterial antennas.

Chapter 1 starts with the definition of natural and metamaterial antennas, followed by discussions of some formulations that are useful for natural and metamaterial antenna design. Chapter 2 revisits four representative natural antennas that radiate a circularly polarized (CP) beam. Firstly, the beam formed by a low-profile open-loop grid array antenna is presented, and we find that the CP beam direction is controlled by the operating frequency. Secondly, formation of CP broadside and conical beams for three antennas (loop, spiral, and curl antennas) is discussed, where techniques for reducing the antenna height are introduced. Note that the CP radiation from the grid array, loop, spiral, and curl antennas in this short course is generated by a traveling wave current, i.e., a non-resonant current on their antenna arms. The gain and input impedance for these four antennas as a function of the operating frequency are also discussed.

Chapter 3 presents three types of metaatoms and then focuses on four types of CP metamaterial antennas: metaline, metaloop, metaspiral, and metacurl antennas. The CP beam from a metaline antenna that is composed of n-type metaatoms is found to be frequency-dependent, as is the case with the natural open-loop grid array antenna. The remaining antennas (metaloop, metaspiral, and metacurl antennas) are composed of one-type of the following metaatoms: c-type metaatoms, n-type metaatoms, or a compound of c- and n-type metaatoms. It is found that these three metamaterial antennas possess a dual-band counter CP radiation characteristic, which is not obtained with natural loop, spiral, or curl antennas. Note that the antenna height of the metamaterial antennas presented in this short course is extremely small: on the order of 1/100 wavelength at the operating frequency.

Dr. Hisamatsu NAKANO, Life Fellow IEEE, has been with Hosei University since 1973, where he is currently a Professor Emeritus and a Special-appointment Researcher with the Electromagnetic Wave Engineering Research Institute attached to the graduate school. He has held positions as Visiting Associate Professor at Syracuse University (March to September 1981), and Visiting Professor at the University of Manitoba (March to September 1986), University of California, Los Angeles (September 1986 to March 1987), and Swansea University, U.K. (July 2016 to September 2019, and 2022). He has published over 360 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 11 books/book chapters, including “Low-profile Natural and Metamaterial Antennas (IEEE Press-Wiley, 2016).” His significant contributions are the development of five integral equations for line antennas in free space and printed on a dielectric substrate, the invention of an L-shaped wire/strip antenna feeding method, and the realization of numerous wideband antennas, including curl, metaspiral, metahelical, and Body of Revolution antennas. His other accomplishments include design of antennas for GPS, personal handy phones, space radio, electronic toll collection, RFID, UWB, and radar. He has been awarded 79 patents, including “A Curl Antenna Element and Its Array (Japan).” His research topics include numerical methods for low- and high-frequency antennas and optical waveguides. He served as a member of the IEEE APS Administrative Committee from 2000 to 2002 and a Region 10 Representative from 2001 to 2010. He received the H. A. Wheeler Award in 1994, the Chen-To Tai Distinguished Educator Award in 2006, and the Distinguished Achievement Award in 2016, all from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. He was also a recipient of The Prize for Science and Technology from Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2010. Most recently, he was selected as a recipient of the Antenna Award of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) in 2020. He is an Associate Editor of several scientific journals and magazines, such as Electromagnetics.

Presented by: Kumar Vijay Mishra, United States DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Ahmet M. Elbir, SnT - Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg

Location: C 125 (OCC)

The millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications employ hybrid analog-digital beamforming architectures to reduce the cost-power-size-hardware overheads arising from the use of extremely large arrays at this band. Lately, there is also a gradual push to move from the millimeter-wave (mmWave) to Terahertz (THz) frequencies for short-range communications and radar applications to exploit very wide THz bandwidths. At THz, ultramassive MIMO array is an enabling technology to exploit ultrawide bandwidth while employing thousands of antennas. The design of the hybrid beamforming techniques requires the solution to difficult nonconvex optimization problems that involve a common performance metric as a cost function and several constraints related to the employed communication regime and the adopted architecture of the hybrid system(s). There is no standard methodology for solving such problems and usually, the derivation of an efficient solution is a very challenging task. Since optimization-based approaches suffer from high computational complexity and their performance strongly relies on the perfect channel condition, we introduce deep learning (DL) techniques that provide robust performance while designing a hybrid beamformer. In this tutorial, the audience will learn about applying DL to various aspects of hybrid beamforming including channel estimation, antenna selection, wideband beamforming, and spatial modulation. In addition, we will examine these concepts in the context of joint radar-communications and intelligent-surfaces-aided architectures.

Dr. Kumar Vijay Mishra (S’08-M’15-SM’18) obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and M.S. in mathematics from The University of Iowa in 2015, and M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2012, while working on NASA’s Global Precipitation Mission Ground Validation (GPM- GV) weather radars. He received his B. Tech. summa cum laude (Gold Medal, Honors) in electronics and communication engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur (NITH), India in 2003. He is currently Senior Fellow at the United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Adelphi; Technical Adviser to Singapore-based automotive radar start-up Hertzwell and Boston-based imaging radar startup Aura Intelligent Systems; and honorary Research Fellow at SnT - Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg. Previously, he had research appointments at Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Bengaluru; IIHR - Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA; Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Cambridge, MA; Qualcomm, San Jose; and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr. Mishra is the recipient of IET Premium Best Paper Prize (2021), U. S. National Academies Harry Diamond Distinguished Fellowship (2018-2021), American Geophysical Union Editors' Citation for Excellence (2019), Royal Meteorological Society Quarterly Journal Editor's Prize (2017), Viterbi Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015, 2016), Lady Davis Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017), DRDO LRDE Scientist of the Year Award (2006), NITH Director’s Gold Medal (2003), and NITH Best Student Award (2003). He has received Best Paper Awards at IEEE MLSP 2019 and IEEE ACES Symposium 2019.

Dr. Mishra is Vice-Chair (2021-present) of the newly constituted IEEE Synthetic Aperture Standards Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. Since 2020, he has been Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems. He is Vice Chair (2021-2023) and Chair-designate (2023- 2026) of International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Commission C. He is a co- lead guest editor of an upcoming IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing Special Issue on Recent Advances in Wideband Signal Processing for Classical and Quantum Synthetic Apertures. He is the lead co-editor of three upcoming books on radar: Signal Processing for Joint Radar-Communications (Wiley-IEEE Press), Next-Generation Cognitive Radar Systems (IET Press Radar, Electromagnetics & Signal Processing Technologies Series), and Advances in Weather Radar Volumes 1, 2 & 3 (IET Press Radar, Electromagnetics & Signal Processing Technologies Series). His research interests include radar systems, signal processing, remote sensing, and electromagnetics.

Dr. Ahmet M. Elbir (S’08-M’14-SM’20) received the B.S. degree (with Hons.) in electrical engineering from Firat University in 2009, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU) in 2016. He is currently a Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher with Koc University, and a Research Fellow with Duzce University. His research interests include array signal processing, sparsity-driven convex optimization, signal processing for communications, and deep learning for array signal processing. He was a recipient of the 2016 METU Best Ph.D. Thesis Award. He has been serving as an Associate Editor for IEEE Access and Frontiers in Communications and Networks.

Presented by: Richard J. Kozick, Bucknell University and Fikadu T. Dagefu, US Army Research Laboratory

Location: C 120 (OCC)

Compact arrays with antennas spaced by much less than a half-wavelength can perform as well or better than traditional arrays with half-wavelength antenna spacing that require more physical space. Therefore compact antenna arrays are of significant interest for wireless communication, angle of arrival estimation, and beamforming. This short course will provide a comprehensive framework for compact antenna array systems that explains the physical mechanism behind the surprisingly good performance and a principled approach to the design of the multiport external coupling network (ECN) that is essential for realizing the performance potential. The closely spaced antennas exhibit strong mutual coupling so the ECN is required to match the impedance of the antennas to the measurement system. Biomimetic antenna arrays (BMAAs) are a particular class of compact antenna array systems that have been studied in the past 12 years, inspired by the hearing mechanism in small flies that exhibit excellent direction-finding capability. Our framework unifies past work on BMAAs and we present novel results based on a multidisciplinary perspective that combines antenna theory, circuit theory, and signal processing. The new results include ECN topologies for which the element values are designed with simple closed-form equations and systematic methods for reducing the complexity of the ECNs with evaluation of performance tradeoffs. We present a model for the BMAA measurements consisting of a small number of parameters that are easily obtained from computational electromagnetics (CEM), wave propagation physics, and circuit theory. Key features of the model include the physical significance of the quantities and a carefully defined array manifold vector that clearly shows the effects of antenna locations, mutual coupling, and the ECN (including impedance mismatch losses). The performance metrics of realized gain, phase difference, beamforming, differential geometry properties of the array manifold, and the Cramer-Rao bound on the angle of arrival parameter are expressible as functions of the array manifold. We present numerical results for dipole arrays with two antennas and three antennas (uniform circular array) to illustrate the key ideas, and the extension to other antennas and arrays with more elements will be summarized. We also discuss connections with superdirectivity/supergain, BMAA system bandwidth, and practical limitations on reducing the antenna spacing in compact antenna arrays.

Dr. Richard J. Kozick received the B.S. degree from Bucknell University in 1986, the M.S. degree from Stanford University in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, all in electrical engineering. From 1986 to 1989 and 1992 to 1993 he was a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Since 1993 he has been with Bucknell University where he is currently Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include antenna array system design, signal processing, and medical ultrasound imaging. Dr. Kozick received a 2006 Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society and the Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence from Bucknell University in 1999.

Dr. Fikadu T. Dagefu received the B.S. degree from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA, in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, in 2009 and 2012, all in electrical engineering. He is currently a Research Scientist with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Adelphi, MD, USA. His research interests include wave propagation and channel modeling, antenna miniaturization, physical layer security, low probability of detection communications, and distributed and reconfigurable beamforming. At ARL, he has served as the program lead for several multidisciplinary programs leading a team of researchers

internally and leveraging collaborative efforts with academic and industry partners as well as other government agencies including DARPA, C5ISR, and AFRL. Dr. Dagefu received the Conference Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Military Communications and Information Systems in 2019 as well as the civilian service commendation award from ARL in 2022. He serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS.

Presented by: Vikass Monebhurrun, Centrale Supélec, Lars Jacob Foged, MVG-World, Vince Rodriguez, NSI-MI

Location: C 123 (OCC)

There is no fee to attend this workshop, however, advance registration is required to attend.

Participants of the workshop will be enrolled in a drawing, and 3 lucky winners will receive a copy of the recently published IEEE Std 149-2021: IEEE Recommended Practice on Antenna Measurements (US $164 Value).

The terminology standards on antennas (IEEE Std. 145) and radio wave propagation (IEEE Std. 211) are important documents that guarantee the right use of accepted terms in technical papers and reports. IEEE Std. 149 (antenna measurement), IEEE Std. 1720 (near field antenna measurement) & IEEE Std. 1502 (radar cross-section measurement) prove useful when performing antenna measurements. The workshop will provide an overview of these standards that have been developed by the IEEE Antennas & Propagation Standards Committee.

Dr. Vikass Monebhurrun (SM’07) received the PhD degree in 1994 and the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches in 2010 from Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Université Paris-Sud, respectively. His research contributed to the international standardization committees of CENELEC, IEC, and IEEE. He is author and co-author of more than hundred peer-reviewed international conference and journal papers and five book chapters. He is an active contributor to the international standardization committees of IEC 62209, IEC 62232, IEC/IEEE 62704 and IEEE1528. He serves as Associate-Editor for the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine since 2015 and Transactions since 2016, and Editor of the IoP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering since 2013. He is the founder of the IEEE RADIO international conference and he served as General Chair for all eight editions since 2012. He is the Chair of the international committees of IEC/IEEE 62704-3 since 2010 and IEEE Antennas and Propagation Standards since 2015. He was recipient of the URSI YSA in 1996, IEEE-SA International Joint Working Group Chair Award in 2017, IEEE Ulrich L. Rohde Humanitarian Technical Field Project Award in 2018, International Electrotechnical Commission 1906 Award in 2018 and IEEE Standards Association International Award in 2019.

Mr. Lars Foged (M’91–SM’00) received his B.S. from Aarhus Teknikum, Denmark in 1988 and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology, USA in 1990. He was a “graduate trainee” of the European Space Agency, ESTEC and in the following ten years, designed communication and navigation antennas in the satellite industry. He led the antenna design effort on the recently launched GALILEO space segment and performed the multi-physics design of shaped reflectors for the EUTELSAT W satellites, still serving European users. Following his passion to rationalize the multi-disciplinary antenna design process, including measurements and simulations, he joined MVG (formerly SATIMO) in 2001 and founded the Italian branch office. In MVG, he initiated close collaborations with universities and research institutions on measurements with focus on antennas and techniques for analysis/post-processing. He has held different technical leadership positions in MVG and is currently the Scientific Director of the Microwave Vision Group, and Associate Director of Microwave Vision Italy. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 journal and conference papers on antenna design and measurement topics and received the “Best Technical Paper Award” from AMTA in 2013. He has contributed to five books and standards, and holds four patents.

Dr. Vince Rodriguez (SM’06) attended The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), in Oxford, Mississippi, where he obtained his B.S.E.E. in 1994. Following graduation Dr. Rodriguez joined the department of Electrical Engineering at Ole Miss as a research assistant. During that period he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. (both degrees on Engineering Science with emphasis in Electromagnetics) in 1996 and 1999 respectively. After a short period as visiting professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Dr. Rodriguez joined EMC Test Systems (now ETS-Lindgren) as an RF and Electromagnetics engineer in June 2000. In November 2014 Dr. Rodriguez Joined MI Technologies (now NSI-MI Technologies) as a Senior Applications Engineer. In this position Dr. Rodriguez works on the design of antenna, RCS, and radome measurement systems. During his tenure at NSI-MI Dr. Rodriguez was involved in designing several Antenna and RCS anechoic ranges for near to far field, Compact Range and far field measurements. In 2017 Dr. Rodriguez was promoted to staff engineer positioning him as the resident expert at NSI-MI of RF absorber and indoor antenna ranges. He is the author of more than fifty publications including journal and conference papers and book chapters.

Presented by: Yahya Rahmat-Samii, University of California, Los Angeles and Fang Yan, Tsinghua University

Location: C 120 (OCC)

From frequency selective surfaces (FSS) to electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) grounds, from impedance boundaries to metasurfaces, novel electromagnetic surfaces keep on emerging. Many intriguing phenomena occur on these surfaces, and novel devices and applications have been proposed accordingly, which have created an exciting paradigm in electromagnetics, the so-called “Surface Electromagnetics”. This short course will review the development of various electromagnetic surfaces, as well as state-of-the-art concepts and designs. Detailed presentations will be provided on the unique electromagnetic features of EBG ground planes and advanced metasurfaces. Furthermore, a wealth of antenna examples will be presented to illustrate promising applications of the surface electromagnetics in antenna engineering. The course covers representative materials from recent books by the lecturers, “Surface Electromagnetics: With Applications in Antenna, Microwave and Optical Engineering” (Cambridge University Press 2019) and “Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures in Antenna Engineering” (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Dr. Yahya Rahmat-Samii is a Distinguished Professor, a holder of the Northrop-Grumman Chair in electromagnetics, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, the winner of the 2011 IEEE Electromagnetics Field Award, and the Former Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA. He was a Senior Research Scientist with the Caltech/NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has authored or co-authored more than 1100 technical journal papers and conference articles and has written over 35 book chapters and seven books. He has more than 20 cover-page IEEE publication articles.

Dr. Rahmat-Samii is a fellow of IEEE, AMTA, ACES, EMA, and URSI. He was a recipient of the Henry Booker Award from URSI, in 1984, which is given triennially to the most outstanding young radio scientist in North America, the Best Application Paper Prize Award (Wheeler Award) of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation in 1992 and 1995, the University of Illinois ECE Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal and the AMTA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2000. In 2001, he received an Honorary Doctorate Causa from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. He received the 2002 Technical Excellence Award from JPL, the 2005 URSI Booker Gold Medal presented at the URSI General Assembly, the 2007 IEEE Chen- To Tai Distinguished Educator Award, the 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, the 2010 UCLA School of Engineering Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award, and the 2011 campus-wide UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. He was also a recipient of the Distinguished Engineering Educator Award from The Engineers Council in 2015, the John Kraus Antenna Award of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and the NASA Group Achievement Award in 2016, the ACES Computational Electromagnetics Award and the IEEE Antennas and Propagation S. A. Schelkunoff Best Transactions Prize Paper Award in 2017, and the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2019. The medals are awarded annually to a group of distinguished U.S. citizens who exemplify a life dedicated to community service. These are individuals who preserve and celebrate the history, traditions, and values of their ancestry while exemplifying the values of the American way of life and are dedicated to creating a better world. He received the Harrington–Mittra Computational Electromagnetics Award in 2022 and he is the recipient of the 2023 USNC-URSI Outstanding Educator Award.

He has had pioneering research contributions in diverse areas of electromagnetics, antennas, measurement and diagnostics techniques, numerical and asymptotic methods, satellite and personal communications, human/antenna interactions, RFID and implanted antennas in medical applications, frequency-selective surfaces, electromagnetic band-gap and meta-material structures, applications of the genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimizations. His original antenna designs are on many NASA/JPL spacecrafts for planetary, remote sensing, and Cubesat missions. He is the Designer of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society logo which is displayed on all IEEE AP-S publications. He was the 1995 President of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and 2009–2011 President of the United States National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). He has also served as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer presenting lectures internationally.

Fan Yang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). From 2002 to 2004, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Engineer and Instructor with the Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA. In 2004, he joined the Electrical Engineering Department, The University of Mississippi as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to an Associate Professor. In 2011, he joined the Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University as a Professor, and served as the Director of the Microwave and Antenna Institute until 2020.

Dr. Yang’s research interests include antennas, surface electromagnetics, computational electromagnetics, and applied electromagnetic systems. He has published over 500 journal articles and conference papers, eight book chapters, and six books entitled Surface Electromagnetics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019), Reflectarray Antennas: Theory, Designs, and Applications (IEEE-Wiley, 2018), Analysis and Design of Transmitarray Antennas (Morgan & Claypool, 2017), Scattering Analysis of Periodic Structures Using Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method (Morgan & Claypool, 2012), Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures in Antenna Engineering (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009), and Electromagnetics and Antenna Optimization Using Taguchi’s Method (Morgan & Claypool, 2007). Dr. Yang served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (2010-2013) and an Associate Editor-in-Chief of Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) Journal (2008-2014). He was the Technical Program Committee (TPC) Chair of 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting. Dr. Yang has been the recipient of several prestigious awards and recognitions, including the Young Scientist Award of the 2005 URSI General Assembly and of the 2007 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory, the 2008 Junior Faculty Research Award of the University of Mississippi, the 2009 inaugural IEEE Donald G. Dudley Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award. He is an ACES Fellow and IEEE Fellow, as well as an IEEE APS Distinguished Lecturer for 2018-2021.

Presented by: Mahmoud Wagih, University of Glasgow and Chaoyun Song, King’s College London

Location: C 124 (OCC)

The rectifying antenna (rectenna) was invented in the 1960s for powering autonomous drones. Nowadays, the research interest in rectenna design has exponentially increased for wireless power transfer (WPT) and RF energy harvesting (RFEH) applications over different scales and frequencies. This short course provides an overview of the completely systematic development process of rectennas and their emerging applications, from historical trends to current design approaches. In particular, the antenna and rectifier co-designing strategy, joint simulation, and impedance matching techniques will be discussed. In addition, the key antenna radiation properties for efficient WPT and RFEH will be introduced and differentiated, based on the application scenario. This workshop will provide attendees with the background and essential knowledge to choose and design the optimal rectenna topology with state-of-the-art performance, and highlights the outstanding research challenges in future rectenna design for both industrial and academic communities.

Dr. Wagih has over 80 Journal and Conference publications and 1 patent on rectennas, RF energy harvesting and wireless power, and novel wearable RF components, antennas, and systems. He received over 15 research awards including the EurAAP Best PhD in Antennas and Propagation [in Europe], in 2022. In addition, he has delivered over 13 invited and keynotes presentations to over 300 researchers and engineers on RF power transmission and novel connectivity solutions for wearables including IEEE OJAP Podcast, IEEE RTC keynote, events hosted by the UK E-Textiles Network, EU EnABLES Consortium, and at top UK and European universities. He is currently an Assistant Professor (UK Proleptic Lecturer) at the University of Glasgow, holding a Royal Academy of Engineering Intelligence Community research fellowship on RF energy harvesting.

Dr. Song received his PhD degree from the University of Liverpool, UK, in 2017. He is currently a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) with the King’s College London, UK. He is an IEEE AP-S Young Professional Ambassador (class of 2023), Member of AP-S, and a Senior Member of IEEE. He has authored/co-authored over 100 papers (including more than 50 papers in rectennas) in IEEE journals and conference proceedings. He has filed six US, EU, and UK patents on rectenna design (one patent has been commercialized by Aeternum Inc. for wireless powered environmental sensors). His current research interests include wireless energy harvesting and power transfer, rectifying antennas (rectennas), flexible and stretchable electronics, metamaterials and low-power sensors. He was the winner of the IET Present Around the World Competition (2016), the BAE Systems Chairman’s Award (2017) and the IET Innovation Awards in 2018. He served as session chairs and/or TPC members for EuCAP2018, IEEE AP-S Symposium 2021, and IEEE VTC2022-fall.

Presented by: Chao-Fu Wang, National University of Singapore

Location: C 123 (OCC)

The concept of theory of characteristic modes (TCM) or characteristic mode (CM) theory was initially introduced and developed by Garbacz, Turpin, Harrington, Mautz, and Chang, et al in the late of 1960s and 1970s. It has recently received renewed attention and attracted much interest in electromagnetics community as TCM can provide a convenient approach to determine the inherent resonant behavior and obtain modal solutions of arbitrarily shaped objects, without considering specific excitation sources. Such TCM solutions offer clear physical insight and a fundamental degree of freedom for the efficient analysis and novel design of antennas and scatterers. The TCM has become extremely popular, especially in the last 10 years, and until now many advances have occurred.

This short course will review the status and development of TCM, as well as the state-of-the-art TCM formulations and their applications to the analysis and design of different antenna structures. Detailed presentations will be provided to address the fundamental meaning of the TCM formulations, the underlying physics of the TCM solutions, and the unique features of the TCM analysis and design process for antennas. Typical antenna examples will be presented to illustrate the promising applications of the TCM in antenna engineering. Outlook and further requirements of the development of TCM will also be briefly discussed. This short course covers some representative materials from a recent book, co-authored by the Instructor, “Characteristic Modes: Theory and Applications in Antenna Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., June 2015”.

This short course will provide a lecture for our AP-S members to effectively learn and understand the fundamentals of the TCM, as well as how to apply the TCM to solve radiation and scattering problems, such as TCM analysis and design of antennas.

Chao-Fu Wang was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Center for Computational Electromagnetics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA, from 1996 to 1999. He came to Singapore in 1999 to join the National University of Singapore (NUS), became a Principal Research Scientist in 2011, and was appointed as an Associate Professor under courtesy joint appointment in 2018. He has been leading Computational Electromagnetics (CEM) Group at NUS for many years to successfully conduct and accomplish many research programs funded by Singapore Government. He co-authored Characteristic Modes: Theory and Applications in Antenna Engineering (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2015). He has published more than 270 journal and conference papers, and filed six international WIPO/PCT patents. His research interests include fast and efficient algorithms for computational electromagnetics, theory of characteristic modes and its applications, fast design and analysis of antennas and antenna arrays, fast prediction of EM scattering from electrically large and complex objects, effective hybrid solution techniques for rapid EM design of real platform, and efficient modeling of EMC/EMI for practical platforms.

Dr. Wang was a co-recipient of the 2009 Best Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) Journal Paper Award. He successively served the IEEE Singapore MTT/AP and EMC Chapters as a committee member, Secretary, Treasurer, and Vice-Chairman from 2003-2012. He served as a Chairman of the IEEE Singapore MTT/AP Chapter in 2013. He has been actively involved in organizing several international conferences in Singapore. He has served as the Publication Chair of the RFIT2005, RFIT2007, RFIT2012, and IEEE APCAP2012, the Organizing Committee Secretary of the IWAT2005 and ISAP2006, the Exhibition and Sponsorship Chair of the APMC2009, the Exhibition Co-Chair of the 2018 Joint IEEE EMC & APEMC Symposium, and Finance Chair of the IEEE APCAP2018. He was a General Chair of 2020 IEEE International Conference on Computational Electromagnetics (ICCEM 2020) and Special Session Chair of the IEEE AP-S/URSI 2021. As a regular reviewer of many international journals, he is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Journal on Multiscale and Multiphysics Computational Techniques, International Journal of Numerical Modelling: Electronic Networks, Devices and Fields, and Electronics Letters. As a Guest Editor of the International Journal of Numerical Modelling: Electronic Networks, Devices and Fields, he has successfully edited a special issue (volume 33, issue 2, March/April 2020) on advanced solution methods for modeling complex electromagnetic problems.

Presented by: Jonathan Chisum, University of Notre Dame, Chris Anderson, US Naval Academy

Location: B 111 (OCC)

Whether you are a graduate student or a post-doc seeking your first faculty appointment, a tenure-track assistant professor working to establish a research group, or a full professor looking to increase your impact, successful proposal writing is an essential skill. Unfortunately, proposal writing is often learned by immersion or, when taught, is treated in such a general manner that it lacks relevance. This tutorial panel will provide concrete examples of both funded and unfunded proposals to share the “do’s and don’ts” of proposal writing. The panel comprises researchers at various stages in their career, spanning a variety of disciplines, with experience in academia, government labs, and non-profits. They will provide concrete suggestions that are immediately useful for attendees. The discussion will present a systematic approach to proposal writing that can not only lead to a sustainable flow of funding, but will also help generate original ideas, refine research plans, establish vibrant collaborations, and make an impact. Our panelists will discuss: the funding landscape including NSF, DoD, industry, non-profit, and international organizations; how to pursue small, medium, and large research programs; how to contact program managers, how to construct white papers and survive a visit (or virtual meeting) to DC; the key elements of a proposal and how to make your proposal irresistible (a “must fund” proposal); telling a compelling and complete story (leaving no major doubts); developing a cadence for proposal writing, execution, and paper writing; and more. Example of successful proposals will be presented.

Dr. Jonathan Chisum received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Boulder, Colorado USA, in 2011. He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. From 2012 to 2015 he was a Member of Technical Staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory in the Wideband Communications and Spectrum Operations groups. His work at Lincoln Laboratory focused on millimeter-wave phased arrays, antennas, and transceiver design for electronic warfare applications. In 2015 he joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame. His research interests include millimeter-wave communications and spectrum sensing using novel and engineered materials and devices to dramatically lower the power and cost and enable pervasive deployments. His group focuses on gradient index (GRIN) lenses for low-power millimeter-wave beam-steering antennas, nonlinear (1-bit) radio architectures for highly efficient communications and sensing up through millimeter-waves, phase-change materials for reconfigurable RF circuits for wideband distributed circuits and antennas, and microwave/spin-wave structures for low-power and chip-scale analog signal processing for spectrum sensing and protection. Dr. Chisum is a senior member of the IEEE, a member of the American Physical Society, and an elected Member of the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union or Radio Science's (URSI) Commission D (electronics and photonics). He is the current Chair for USNC URSI Commission D: Electronics and Photonics. He is also an Associate Editor for IET Electronics Letters.

Dr. Chris Anderson is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the United States Naval Academy (USNA). He is the Founder and Director of the USNA Wireless Measurements Group (WMG), a focused research group that specializes in spectrum, propagation, and field strength measurements in diverse environments and at frequencies ranging from 300 MHz to 60 GHz. He has over two decades of experience in radiowave propagation measurements and modeling, software-defined radios, and dynamic spectrum sharing. From 2016-2018 he served as a Visiting Researcher at the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences in Boulder, CO where he concentrated on developing propagation models for cluttered environments. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, NASA, the Defense Spectrum Organization, and the Federal Railroad Administration. Dr. Anderson is a former Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications and was a Guest Editor of the IEEE Journal On Selected Areas In Signal Processing Special Issue on Non-Cooperative Localization Networks. He was the General Chair of the 2018 NTIA International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies.

Presented by: Christopher L. Holloway, NIST, Nik Prajapati, NIST

Location: C 125 (OCC)

One of the keys to developing new science and technologies is to have sound metrology tools and techniques. Fundamental to all electromagnetic measurements is having accurately calibrated probes, antennas, and power meters in order to measure either electric (E) fields or power. Atom-based measurements allow for direct SI-traceable measurements, and as a result, measurement standards have evolved towards atom-based measurements over the last few decades; most notably length (m), frequency (Hz), and time (s) standards. Recently, there has been a great interest in extending this to magnetic and electric (E) field sensors. In the past 10 years, we have made great progress in the development of a fundamentally new direct the International System of Units (SI) traceable approach based on Rydberg atoms (traceable through Planck’s constant, which is now an SI defined constant). The Rydberg atom-based sensors now have the capability of measuring amplitude, polarization, and phase of RF fields and signals. As such, various applications are beginning to emerge. These include SI-traceable E-field probes, waveform analyzers, power-sensors, voltage standards, RF cameras, receivers for communication signals (AM/FM modulated and digital phase modulation signals), TV/Video-Game streaming and many other applications. In these receivers, the atoms act as the antenna and removing the need for down-conversion electronics. These new Rydberg atom-based sensors will be beneficial for 5G and beyond in that they will allow for the calibrations of both field strength and power for frequencies above 100 GHz.

Dr. Christopher L. Holloway is a NIST Fellow and a Fellow of the IEEE. He is also on the Graduate Faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his B.S.E degree from the University of Tennessee, and his Master and PhD degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His is an expert in electromagnetic theory and metrology, quantum-optics, Rydberg-atom systems, and atom-based sensors. He has a publication h-index of 57 with over 300 technical publications (including 147 refereed journal papers and 133 conference papers) and has over 13,500 citations of his papers. He also has 10 patents in various fields in engineering and physics. He is the Project Leader for the Rydberg-Atom-Sensor Project and is the Group Leader for the Electromagnetic Fields Group.

Dr. Nikunjkumar (Nik) Prajapati obtained his PhD in Quantum Optics at William and Mary, where he worked on quantum metrology and quantum communications. He is currently a post-doctoral Fellow at NIST through the National Research Council Fellowship. He has been at NIST for the past two years working on advancing the sensitivity and application space for Rydberg atom-based field probes. His contributions include using a repump field for signal enhancement, reception of live tv using Rydberg atoms, and characterizing a plated vapor cell for application as a calibrated voltage sensor.