Modern communication systems call for state-of-the-art links that offer almost idealistic performance. This requirement had pushed the technological world to pursue communication in frequency bands that were almost incomprehensible back when the first series of cordless cellphones were invented. These requirements have impacted everything from civilian requirements, space, medical diagnostics to defense technologies and have ushered in a new era of advancements. This work presents a new and novel approach towards improving the conventional phased array systems. The Intelligent Phase Shifter (IPS) offers phase tracking and discrimination solutions that currently plague High-Frequency wireless systems. The proposed system is implemented on (CMOS) process node to better scalability and reduce the overall power dissipated. A tracking system can discern Radio Frequency (RF) Signals’ phase characteristics using a double-balanced mixer. A locally generated reference signal is then matched to the phase of the incoming receiver using a fully modular yet continuous complete 360ᵒ phase shifter that alters the phase of the local reference and matches the phase with that of an incoming RF reference. The tracking is generally two control voltages that carry In-phase and Quadrature-phase information. These control signals offer the capability of controlling similar devices when placed in an array and eliminating any ambiguity that might occur due to in-band interference.

This work focuses on the analysis and design of large-scale millimeter-wave andterahertz (mmWave/THz) beamforming apertures (e.g., reconfigurable reflective surfaces– RRSs). As such, the small wavelengths and ample bandwidths of these frequencies enable the development of high-spatial-resolution imaging and high-throughput wireless communication systems that leverage electrically large apertures to form high-gain steerable beams. For the rigorous evaluation of these systems’ performance in realistic application scenarios, full-wave simulations are needed to capture all the exhibited electromagnetic phenomena. However, the small wavelengths of mmWave/THz bands lead to enormous meshes in conventional full-wave simulators. Thus, a novel numerical decomposition technique is presented, which decomposes the full-wave models in smaller domains with less meshed elements, enabling their computationally efficient analysis. Thereafter, this method is leveraged to study a novel radar configuration that employs a rotating linear antenna with beam steering capabilities to form 3D images. This imaging process requires fewer elements to carry out high-spatial-resolution imaging compared to traditional 2D phased arrays, constituting a perfect candidate in low-profile, low-cost applications. Afterward, a high-yield nanofabrication technique for mmWave/THz graphene switches is presented. The measured graphene sheet impedances are incorporated into equivalent circuit models of coplanar switches to identify the optimum mmWave/THz switch topology that would enable the development of large-scale RRSs.ii Thereon, the process of integrating the optimized graphene switches into largescale mmWave/THz RRSs is detailed. The resulting RRSs enable dynamic beam steering achieving 4-bits of phase quantization –for the first time in the known literature– eliminating the parasitic lobes and increasing the aperture efficiency. Furthermore, the devised multi-bit configurations use a single switch-per-bit topology retaining low system complexity and RF losses. Finally, single-bit RRSs are modified to offer single-lobe patterns by employing a surface randomization technique. This approach allows for the use of low-complexity single-bit configurations to suppress the undesired quantization lobes without residing to the use of sophisticated multi-bit topologies. The presented concepts pave the road toward the implementation and proliferation of large-scale reconfigurable beamforming apertures that can serve both as mmWave/THz imagers and as relays or base stations in future wireless communication applications.

Technological advances in low power wearable electronics and energy optimization techniques

make motion energy harvesting a viable energy source. However, it has not been

widely adopted due to bulky energy harvester designs that are uncomfortable to wear. This

work addresses this problem by analyzing the feasibility of powering low wearable power

devices using piezoelectric energy generated at the human knee. We start with a novel

mathematical model for estimating the power generated from human knee joint movements.

This thesis’s major contribution is to analyze the feasibility of human motion energy harvesting

and validating this analytical model using a commercially available piezoelectric

module. To this end, we implemented an experimental setup that replicates a human knee.

Then, we performed experiments at different excitation frequencies and amplitudes with

two commercially available Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) modules. These experimental

results are used to validate the analytical model and predict the energy harvested as a function

of the number of steps taken in a day. The model estimates that 13μWcan be generated

on an average while walking with a 4.8% modeling error. The obtained results show that

piezoelectricity is indeed a viable approach for powering low-power wearable devices.

The purpose of this project is to analyze the MIT OpenCourseWare coffee can radar design and modify it to be better suited for drone based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) applications while maintaining the low-cost aspect of the original design. The MIT coffee can radar can function as a ranged radar, a Doppler radar, or as SAR. Through simulations and research, the suggestions for how to modify the radar resulted in swapping the coffee can monopole antennas for patch antenna arrays or helical ordinary end-fire antennas, adding an Arduino for automatic recording of output pulses, and switching from a breadboard construction to a PCB to shrink form factor and keep costs and construction time low.

In this thesis, the synergy between millimeter-wave (mmWave) imaging and wireless communications is used to achieve high accuracy user localization and mapping (SLAM) mobile users in an uncharted environment. Such capability is enabled by taking advantage of the high-resolution image of both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) objects that mmWave imaging provides, and by utilizing angle of arrival (AoA) and time of arrival (ToA) estimators from communications. The motivations of this work are as follows: first, enable accurate SLAM from a single viewpoint i.e., using only one antenna array at the base station without any prior knowledge of the environment. The second motivation is the ability to localize in NLoS-only scenarios where the user signal may experience more than one reflection until it reaches the base station. As such, this proposed work will not make any assumptions on what region the user is and will use mmWave imaging techniques that will work for both near and far field region of the base station and account for the scattering properties of mmWave. Similarly, a near field signal model is developed to correctly estimate the AoA regardless of the user location.

This SLAM approach is enabled by reconstructing the mmWave image of the environment as seen by the base station. Then, an uplink pilot signal from the user is used to estimate both AoA and ToA of the dominant channel paths. Finally, AoA/ToA information is projected into the mmWave image to fully localize the user. Simulations using full-wave electromagnetic solvers are carried out to emulate an environment both in the near and far field. Then, to validate, an experiment carried in laboratory by creating a simple two-dimensional scenario in the 220-300 GHz range using a synthesized 13-cm linear antenna array formed by using vector network analyzer extenders and a one-dimensional linear motorized stage that replicates the base station. After taking measurements, this method successfully reconstructs the image of the environment and localize the user position with centimeter accuracy.

The universe since its formation 13.7 billion years ago has undergone many changes. It began with expanding and cooling down to a temperature low enough for formation of atoms of neutral Hydrogen and Helium gas. Stronger gravitational pull in certain regions caused some regions to be denser and hotter than others. These regions kept getting denser and hotter until they had centers hot enough to burn the hydrogen and form the first stars, which ended the Dark Ages. These stars did not live long and underwent violent explosions. These explosions and the photons from the stars caused the hydrogen gas around them to ionize. This went on until all the hydrogen gas in the universe was ionized. This period is known as Epoch Of Reionization. Studying the Epoch Of Reionization will help understand the formation of these early stars, the timeline of the reionization and the formation of the stars and galaxies as we know them today. Studying the radiations from the 21cm line in neutral hydrogen, redshifted to below 200MHz can help determine details such as velocity, density and temperature of these early stars and the media around them.

The EDGES program is one of the many programs that aim to study the Epoch of Reionization. It is a ground-based project deployed in Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. At ground level the Radio Frequency Interference from the ionosphere and various man-made transmitters in the same frequency range as the EDGES receiver make measurements, receiver design and extraction of useful data from received signals difficult. Putting the receiver in space can help majorly escape the RFI. The EDGES In Space is a proposed project that aims at designing a receiver similar to the EDGES receiver but for a cubesat.

This thesis aims at designing a prototype receiver that is similar in architecture to the EDGES low band receiver (50-100MHz) but is significantly smaller in size (small enough to fit on a PCB for a cubesat) while keeping in mind different considerations that affect circuit performance in space.

This Creative Project was carried out in coordination with the capstone project, Around the Corner Imaging with Terahertz Waves. This capstone project deals with a system designed to implement Around the Corner, or Non Line-of-Sight (NLoS) Imaging. This document discusses the creation of a GUI using MATLAB to control the Terahertz Imaging system. The GUI was developed in response to a need for synchronization, ease of operation, easy parameter modification, and data management. Along the way, many design decisions were made ranging from choosing a software platform to determining how variables should be passed. These decisions and considerations are discussed in this document. The resulting GUI has measured up to the design criteria and will be able to be used by anyone wishing to use the Terahertz Imaging System for further research in the field of Around the Corner or NLoS Imaging.

The inductance of a conductor expresses its tendency to oppose a change in current flowing through it. For superconductors, in addition to the familiar magnetic inductance due to energy stored in the magnetic field generated by this current, kinetic inductance due to inertia of charge carriers is a significant and often dominant contribution to total inductance. Devices based on modifying the kinetic inductance of thin film superconductors have widespread application to millimeter-wave astronomy. Lithographically patterning such a film into a high quality factor resonator produces a high sensitivity photodetector known as a kinetic inductance detector (KID), which is sensitive to frequencies above the superconducting energy gap of the chosen material. Inherently multiplexable in the frequency domain and relatively simple to fabricate, KIDs pave the way to the large format focal plane array instruments necessary to conduct the next generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB), star formation, and galaxy evolution studies. In addition, non-linear kinetic inductance can be exploited to develop traveling wave kinetic inductance parametric amplifiers (TKIPs) based on superconducting delay lines to read out these instruments.

I present my contributions to both large and small scale collaborative efforts to develop KID arrays, spectrometers integrated with KIDs, and TKIPs. I optimize a dual polarization TiN KID absorber for the next generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry, which is designed to investigate the role magnetic fields play in star formation. As part of an effort to demonstrate aluminum KIDs on sky for CMB polarimetry, I fabricate devices for three design variants. SuperSpec and WSpec are respectively the on-chip and waveguide implementations of a filter bank spectrometer concept designed for survey spectroscopy of high redshift galaxies. I provide a robust tool for characterizing the performance of all SuperSpec devices and demonstrate basic functionality of the first WSpec prototype. As part of an effort to develop the first W-Band (75-110 GHz) TKIP, I construct a cryogenic waveguide feedthrough, which enhances the Astronomical Instrumentation Laboratory’s capability to test W-Band devices in general. These efforts contribute to the continued maturation of these kinetic inductance technologies, which will usher in a new era of millimeter-wave astronomy.

The Milky Way galaxy is a powerful dynamic system that is highly efficient at recycling material. Stars are born out of intergalactic gas and dust, fuse light elements into heavier elements in their cores, then upon stellar death spread material throughout the galaxy, either by diffusion of planetary nebula or by explosive events for high mass stars, and that gas must cool and condense to form stellar nurseries. Though the stellar lifecycle has been studied in detail, relatively little is known about the processes by which hot, diffuse gas ejected by dying stars cools and conglomerates in the interstellar medium (ISM). Much of this mystery arises because only recently have instruments with sufficient spatial and spectral resolution, sensitivity, and bandwidth become available in the terahertz (THz) frequency spectrum where these clouds peak in either thermal or line emission. In this dissertation, I will demonstrate technology advancement of instruments in this frequency regime with new characterization techniques, machining strategies, and scientific models of the spectral behavior of gas species targeted by these instruments.

I begin this work with a description of radiation pattern measurements and their use in astronomical instrument characterization. I will introduce a novel technique to measure complex (phase-sensitive) field patterns using direct detectors. I successfully demonstrate the technique with a single pixel microwave inductance detectors (MKID) experiment. I expand that work by measuring the APEX MKID (A-MKID) focal plane array of 880 pixel detectors centered at 350 GHz. In both chapters I discuss the development of an analysis pipeline to take advantage of all information provided by complex field mapping. I then discuss the design, simulation, fabrication processes, and characterization of a circular-to-rectangular waveguide transformer module integrated into a circularly symmetric feedhorn block. I conclude with a summary of this work and how to advance these technologies for future ISM studies.

The objective of this work is to design a low-profile compact Terahertz (THz) imaging system that can be installed in portable devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or CubeSats. Taking advantage of the rotational motion of these platforms, one can use linear antennas, such as leaky-wave antennas or linear phased arrays, to achieve fast image acquisition using simple RF front-end topologies. The proposed system relies on a novel image reconstructing technique that uses the principles of computerized tomography (Fourier-slice theorem). It can be implemented using a rotating antenna that produces a highly astigmatic fan-beam. In this work, the imaging system is composed of a linear phased antenna array with a highly directive beam pattern in the E-plane allowing for high spatial resolution imaging. However, the pattern is almost omnidirectional in the H-plane and extends beyond the required field-of-view (FOV). This is a major drawback as the scattered signals from any interferer outside the FOV will still be received by the imaging aperture and cause distortion in the reconstructed image. Also, fan beams exhibit significant distortion (curvature) when tilted at large angles, thus introducing errors in the final image due to its failure to achieve the assumed reconstructing algorithm.

Therefore, a new design is proposed to alleviate these disadvantages. A 14×64 elements non-uniform array with an optimal flat-top pattern is designed with an iterative process using linear perturbation of a close starting pattern until the desired pattern is acquired. The principal advantage of this design is that it restricts the radiated/received power into the required FOV. As a result, a significant enhancement in the quality of images is achieved especially in the mitigation of the effect of any interferer outside the FOV. In this report, these two designs are presented and compared in terms of their imaging efficiency along with a series of numerical results verifying the proof of concept.