Design of Low Cost Millimeter Wave Antennas

In the past, millimeter wave technology was mainly used for military applications with sophisticated components and systems. Recently, due to the success in developing low cost silicon-based integrated circuits operated at higher frequencies, many millimeter wave systems have been proposed for civilian and commercial applications. Examples include the 60 GHz license-free indoor broadband personal area networks, 77 GHz automotive sensor systems, and the sub-millimeter wave imaging array for security. For cost reduction, all these systems require to use low power signal sources. Also, propagation path loss at the millimeter wave frequency band is severely high. To maintain reasonable coverage, medium or high gain millimeter wave antennas with beam steering capability are preferred in general. The conventional approach of using phase shifters to implement phased arrays is not recommended for commercial applications as millimeter wave phase shifters are very expensive and high in insertion loss. Instead, MIMO antenna system is believed to be the best solution for millimeter wave applications. In this project, we will develop several innovative high performance antennas for millimeter wave communication systems with smart antenna technologies.