Title:  Millimeter-wave MIMO Transmitter Systems for Reliability, Security and Sensing

Committee: 

Dr. Wang, Advisor

Dr. Raychowdhury, Chair

Dr. Bloch

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to develop high performance silicon-based Transmitter (TX) systems serving multitude of applications including reliable, secure, wideband communication, sensing. Silicon based mm-wave phased array systems have gained attention in the recent years as the process offers high performance metrics including high fmax, good linearity, and low cost of production/integration of system. Although phased arrays improve the communication range of mm-wave systems by improving the antenna gain, they exhibit several limitations such as scan angle dependent antenna impedance variations (antenna voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR)), limited security, narrow beamwidth etc. In this proposal, several circuit/system innovations are presented to address these limitations. These techniques introduce silicon-based antenna VSWR resilient linear power amplifier (PA), multi-band Doherty Power amplifier, directionally secure communication links using MIMO TX phased array. These proposed techniques can enable wideband, reliable and secure communication links targeting several applications including 5G/ beyond 5G, radar, wireless backhaul etc. Silicon based TX MIMO systems providing directional security with wideband modulation signals (>10% fractional bandwidth), Frequency Diverse Arrays (FDA) for 2D localization of receivers have also been proposed for communication/radar/imaging applications.