Tutorial: RF MEMS for Radar

Presented by:
Dr. Koen Van Caekenberghe
Consultant, USA

Course Description:

The aim of the tutorial is to present an overview of viable applications of RF MEMS technology in radar sensors. Firstly, an introduction to electronically scanned arrays, radar and RF MEMS technology is given.
Secondly, RF MEMS radar components, which include attenuators, limiters, oscillators and resonators for frequency synthesizers, (true-time-delay) phase shifters, transmit/receive (T/R) switches and tunable matching networks, are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on design trade-offs of true-time-delay phase shifters, intended to be used in conjunction with tapered slot antennas and recent UWB antenna array developments, such as connected dipole arrays. Thirdly, the integration of RF MEMS radar components in radar subsystems is detailed. The radar subsystems, which are discussed, are passive electronically scanned arrays (lens arrays, reflect arrays, and switched beamformers), passive subarrays, radomes, and T/R modules for active electronically scanned arrays. Using a bottom-up approach, the figures of merit for RF MEMS technology are related to radar subsystem performance benchmarks.

Finally, UWB RF MEMS T/R module and UWB RF MEMS lens and reflect array design trade-off analysis are illustrated using the open-source software packages: Qucs and wxMaxima. Attendees are invited to bring their laptops with them, and download and install following packages:

http://qucs.sourceforge.net
http://rfmaxima.sourceforge.net
http://wxmaxima.sourceforge.net

 

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Instructor Biography:

Koen Van Caekenberghe received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2007. His doctoral research involved RF MEMS technology for radar sensors.