Antennas & Electromagnetics Group (ANTENNAS)

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** New Book on Antennas for Satellite Navigation By ANTENNAS Researchers **

A group of researchers in the antennas group at QMUL, including Prof. Parini, Prof. Chen and Prof. Collins have published a book on "Antennas for Global Navigation Satellite Systems".

Xiaodong Chen, Clive G. Parini, Brian Collins, Yuan Yao and Masood Ur Rahman, Antennas for Global Navigation Satellite Systems, 2012 John Wiley & Sons Limited, ISBN-10: 1119993679,  ISBN-13: 978-1119993674

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Established in 1968  the group has comprehensive experimental facilities housed in the Antenna Measurement Laboratory, which has recently received £1 million in infrastructure investment. The group has strong links with industry and a current active grant portfolio of over £7.5m and this includes a prestigious EPSRC platform grant valued at £1.2 million to fund post-doctoral researchers as well as in- reach and outreach activities with other world-leading antenna laboratories and EPSRC Programme Grant led by Prof. Yang Hao on Quest of Transformational Electromagnetics worth around £4.6m.

• Our research on antennas for mobile communications includes multiband antennas, multiple antennas for MIMO applications, Ultra wideband (UWB) antennas, semi-smart base station antennas and antennas and radio propagation for body-centric wireless communications.
• In the area of metamaterials we study computational electromagnetic models for both active and passive structures. We are studying new nano-materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes that offer possible advances in antennas and metamaterials. 
• We are developing software techniques to exploit the concepts of Transformation Electromagnetics, offering such novel devices as flat multi-reflector antennas and cloaking devices. 
• Our research on Terahertz Spectroscopy aims to help scientists visualize structures such as proteins and actively enhance chemical reactions.
• In the area of antennas and healthcare we study the interaction of electromagnetic waves with biological tissue, dosimetry, wireless implants and RF sensors for example in blood glucose monitoring.
• We also apply CEM to Microwave Electron Tube Devices to understand design of magnetrons with the aim of developing compact high power millimetrewave sources.  
• In the area of metrology we work on near-field measurement, millimetrewave imaging for security and compact antenna test range development.

The Antenna Measurement Group's mission statement is "High Quality Research backed up by High Quality Measurements". Comprehensive experimental facilities are available at Queen Mary and are housed in the Antenna Measurement Laboratory. Research in the Laboratory is directed by Prof. Clive Parini (FREng) along with 5 full time members of academic staff and assisted by 4 part-time Research Professors (see People).

Research Activities

The Antennas & Electromganteics research group has a strong team of acadmics and researchers working on various areas realted to antenna engineering, bio-electromagnetics, novel materials for enhanced performance and antenna & Em theory and metrology concepts. The group has established excellent collaborations and links with many academic and industrial partners working specifically inon antennas and EM problems but also ranging to problems for wireless communications and medical applications.

                                                  
                         Click on the image above to see an enlarged version of the Antenna Activities Poster

The research withing the group can be divided into the following themes (but not limited and often expanded and integrated with other disciplines):

• Antennas & Radio Propagation for Body-Centric Wireless Networks

  Work includes but not limited to: Compact, low-cost and efficient body-worn antenna designs and optimisation, guided-wave solutions for on-body communications, numerical modelling of wearable antennas and sensors for healthcare applications, numerical modelling of radio propagation in complex environments, radio channel characterisation (statistical and deterministic models), system-level modelling of potential body-centric communication systems.
  For more details: Body-Centric Networks & Ubiquitous Computing Technology

• Antennas for Mobile Communications

  Work includes but not limited to: multi-band handset antennas; multiple antennas for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) applications; use of Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) substrates; semi-smart base station antennas; antennas and radio propagation for wireless wearable computers and ubiquitous computing.
  

• Theory and Application of Metamaterials

  Work includes but not limited to: dispersive FDTD computational model for Left-Handed materials; design and applications of EBG structures and Left-handed materials in microwave engineering.

• Quasi-optics and Millimetrewave Antennas

  Work includes but not limited to: Development of new computational verification tool based on diffracted Gaussian beams; development of a tri-reflector Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR); CAD and experimental verification of a 90GHz integrated active antenna; active integrated conical horn antennas; theoretical and experimental characterisation of dichroic plates.
  For more details: Millimetrewave Antenna Research

• Interaction of Electromagnetic Waves with Biological Tissue

  Work includes but not limited to: Dosimetry and development of full body SAR model for handset antennas.

• CEM applied to Microwave Electron Tube Devices

  Work includes but not limited to: CEM design of magnetrons; low power phase locking of high power magnetrons (Faraday Partnership).

• Antenna Theory

  Work includes but not limited to: Conformal FDTD; discrete Green's function FDTD; satellite earth station clutter modelling using "Power Coupling Theory"; FDTD based antenna array analysis.
  For more details: Telecommunications Research, Finite Difference Time Domain Research

• Antenna Metrology

  Work includes but not limited to: Research is focused around the major antenna measurement facilities of the Antenna Measurement Laboratory: two compact antenna test range operating from 5GHz to 300GHz; Fully screened anechoic chamber for mobile communications antenna applications (750MHz to 5GHz); NSI Planar near-field range operating to 100GHz; 100GHz quasi-optical test bench; 9mx3mx3m anechoic chamber for feed measurements and radome characterisation.

  Along with colleagues Stuart Gregson ( Near-field systems Inc) and John McCormick ( SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems Ltd) Prof. Clive Parini has recently published a comprehensive text covering the theory and practice of planar Nearfield antenna measurement.