Season’s Greetings ■ John Wood
W
ell, here I am writing an editorial that will appear in time for the winter solstice celebrations, and we haven’t yet had the autumnal equinox. I was talking with the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) President Nick Kolias at the INMMIC conference recently, and we agreed that writing in the past tense about events yet to happen takes some getting used to. I have had a few items appear on the editor’s desk in the past couple of months. One item is the expansion of IEEE Xplore to include interactive searching using HTML. The other item was more about the IEEE open access (OA) online journal that the IEEE is planning to publish: this information was more for the magazine and journal editors on how to handle OA submissions. More on this topic in a subsequent editorial. John Wood (
[email protected]) is with Maxim Integrated, San Jose, California. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2012.2220999 Date of publication: 14 November 2012
6
IEEE Publishing Operations have been working hard to expand the features available in IEEE Xplore and have announced recently that a number of articles have been made available in HTML format. The first announcement, that 1,400 articles have been converted to HTML format, was made in August, and by now the number should be much larger. The
HTML format enables a whole host of search features that were previously unavailable, making IEEE Xplore a much more formidable technical search engine. In addition to the usual PDF format of the full text article, the reader can now work interactively with IEEE Xplore to search the article further. This is illustrated in the figure shown here, which shows the tabs
November/December 2012
XF7 simulating a TE20 to TE10 tri-bend mode converter.
Electromagnetic Applications:
XFdtd ® 3D Electromagnetic Simulation Software is powerful
Antenna Design & Analysis: WiFi, Wireless LAN, WiMAX, Arrays, Mobile
enough to handle the toughest simulations. It’s tremendously fast
Antenna Placement: On-Platform, Human Interaction Biomedical: Imaging, Implantables EMI/EMC Testing Metamaterials/Special Materials Microwave Devices: Waveguides, Rotman Lens Photonics and Optical Radar and Scattering, RCS Signal Integrity Static Discharge Wireless Propagation
by leveraging NVIDIA’s most modern CUDA-enabled GPUs. And it’s easy to use and engineered to replicate real-world processes. Power, Speed, and Usability — Release 7.3 Now Available! Recent enhancements: Waveguide ports Stretch and twist geometry Static solver now solves for all good conductors XStream® GPU Acceleration for Thin Wire, Magnetized Ferrite, and Periodic Boundary Condition ODB++ PCB import within CAD Merge, allowing retention of previous modifications to the PCB Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and Time Domain Transmission (TDT) output types Release 7.3 highlights at: www.remcom.com/xf7-waveguides
Find resources for your specific electromagnetic application at: www.remcom.com/electromagnetic-applications
+1.888.7.REMCOM (US/CAN) +1.814.861.1299 www.remcom.com
NVIDIA and CUDA are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the United States and other countries.
available for accessing information from a given article: I chose an article from the January 2012 issue of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques to illustrate the features available in the HTML format. One of the useful html capabilities is that you can access all the figures while reading the text so that you can keep the figure in view while reading the description. Other features are
8
Another feature of the html format is that we are no longer restricted to presenting information in a format that is targeted at the print medium.
useful for searching a topic or the author’s works more comprehensively. For instance, you will be able to look up how many times an article has been cited and by whom and where. You can then pursue your search directly from there by chasing the source of the citation and obtaining that document. You can also jump directly to the article’s references and search through those papers and authors, tracking down a particular topic or the historical and technical development of an idea with just a few keystrokes. This allows you to access the IEEE Xplore database quickly and effectively. What a huge change from how I did my first searches as a fresh new Ph.D. student: tracking down the reference in the dusty volumes of the bound yearbooks of the learned journals, often in the gloomy stacks in the basement of the university library, then carrying the weighty volume up to the photocopier and obtaining my own paper copy. After reading and digesting the paper, I had to search for the important references in it and follow the same procedure round again. Author searches were even more tedious, looking through the author indexes for each year of the journal and then looking up the paper to see if it seemed relevant. I recall these basic searches could take several days, the outcome being a stack of maybe a dozen relevant papers. With these new tools in IEEE Xplore, this could probably be accomplished in perhaps an hour or two. Progress? I think so… and yes, the bound volumes did always seem to have a thin coating of powder; I just assumed it was dust. Another feature of the html format is that we are no longer restricted to presenting information in a format that is targeted at the print medium. Did you notice the “Multimedia” tab (greyed out in this example)? It is now possible to include additional materials with your published paper, such as examples of code for simulation or instrument control, or audio and video files. Such extensions to the traditional print environment will surely encourage new and innovative ways of communicating results and information. I am looking forward to seeing how this develops in our community.
November/December 2012
The invaluable tool for advanced antenna diagnostics and processing of measured fields DIATOOL reconstructs the extreme near-field and surface currents of an antenna under test (AUT), based on the radiated field measured in anechoic chambers. The reconstruction is performed on an arbitrary surface conformal to the AUT or on a plane in the extreme near-field region.
Application areas: • Antenna diagnostics: Identification of array element failure, surface errors, feeding network and radome imperfections, leaking cables and unexpected bright spots, all of which cause unexpected anomalies in the radiation pattern •
Filtering of undesired radiation: Computation of clean antenna patterns where currents on cables, mounting fixture or selected areas of the reconstruction surface are suppressed – essential for measurements of small antennas
•
Enhancement of measured patterns: Compute noise-free patterns radiated by the reconstructed currents – the conformal reconstruction surface acts as a physics-based filter that includes the shape of the AUT
Application of the planar reconstruction technique: the co-polar component
Application of the 3D reconstruction technique:
of the radiated electric field is reconstructed on a plane in the measurement
the cross-polar component of the radiated electric
coordinate system. A bump on the reflector surface is clearly visible. The
field is reconstructed on a closed surface conformal to
bump caused numerous ripples in the side lobes of the measured far-field
the AUT. The figure shows an unexpected asymmetry
pattern, while the main lobe did not show any anomaly.
which is due to an error in the horn feeding network and which causes a high cross-polar component in the measured pattern.
Pioneering Antennas
TICRA is an antenna engineering company with world leading expertise in software tools and consultancy services within design, analysis and measurement techniques for antennas. Based in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark, TICRA employs highly skilled professionals with over 240 man-years of expertise in their fields.
www.ticra.com
As the year draws to a close, it marks the end of the first year of being a Distinguished Microwave Lecturer (DML) for myself and five colleagues, J.C. Chiao, Madhu Gupta, Shiban Koul, Luca Pierantoni, and Dominique Schreurs. I have found this to be a fantastic experience: to be able to meet with old colleagues and make new friendships, exchanging views and ideas, and learning something new. I have been made very welcome at every lecture. As an example of how the DMLs can be organized and how they can benefit your chapter, in the “Around the Globe” column this issue of the magazine, you can read about Shiban Koul’s lecture tour that he made recently through the New England states, presenting from his repertoire of DML lectures at several MTT-S Chapters. I encourage you to contact the DMLs—there are currently 13 of us—to come and present at your local MTT-S Chapter or workshop;
details can be found on the MTT-S Web site at: •• http://www.mtt.org/dmls.html ••h ttp://www.mtt.org/speakersbureau.html ••h ttp://www.mtt.org/dmls/89emeritus-dml.html. And finally, I thought that I would round off this first year of my editorship of the magazine with a joke: It was a few weeks before Christmas, and the British Ambassador to the United States was invited to appear on a political radio program. The interview was being recorded for a later transmission. It went well, and towards the end, the radio interviewer asked the ambassador what he would like for Christmas. The ambassador demurred: “Oh really, I don’t think you need to…” but the radio interviewer insisted. “Oh well, perhaps a small box of crystallized fruits would be nice,” replied the ambassador, not wish-
ing to intrude upon the interviewers graciousness and generosity. A couple of weeks later, the radio program was about to be broadcast, and the radio interviewer prefaced the program with the following announcement: “Before Christmas, we were fortunate to be able to interview the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the French Foreign Minister, and the U.K. Ambassador to the United States, and we asked each of them what their Christmas wishes were. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said he wished for peace on earth and an end to all wars, the French Foreign Minister wished for an end to poverty and improved health in the third world, and the U.K. Ambassador would like a small box of crystallized fruits.”
DI Cavity Material Measurement Setups • • • • •
Model 082HC Thin Sheet Tester
Dk, Df, Epsilon, Tan δ in x, y and z Directions Cavity™ Software Easy Calibration Common Analyzers
phone (610) 358-0200 www.damaskosinc.com
Beryllia - Model 125HC Thin Sheet Tester
Model 600T Open Resonator Teflon - Model 600T Open Resonator
7.0
2.1
6.6
Dk
Dk
6.8
6.4
2.0
6.2
1.9
6.0 0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
Frequency (GHz)
Dk
100
110
Teflon - Model 600T Open Resonator
0.0010
0.0010
0.0008
0.0008
0.0006
0.0006
Df
Df
90
Frequency (GHz)
Dk
Beryllia - Model 125HC Thin Sheet Tester
0.0004
0.0004 0.0002
0.0002 0.0000 0.0 Df
10
80
5.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
Frequency (GHz)
Model 400 Circ.
0.0000
80 Df
90
100
110
Frequency (GHz)
November/December 2012
