Applications of Microwave Antenna Array for Wireless Power Transmission and Radar Imaging in Complex Environment

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

The focus of my research interests lies in the application of microwave antenna array system and array signal processing techniques to problems in wireless power transmission and radar imaging. The two research areas share the same underlying mathematical principle of time reversality of electromagnetic wave propagation. Based on this principle, the array antenna system and the associated signal processing algorithm are further improved to adapt to different scenarios. In my dissertation, the rest part presents an optimal algorithm for wireless power trans- mission with beamforming array. The optimal weight distribution on antenna array elements is found based on time reversal eigenmode technique. Our method is adaptive to the medium of the channel and can be applied to arbitrarily positioned antenna without degradation of efficiency. This novel method is analytically studied and verified with numerical electromagnetic simulations. The second part presents a new problem called "Hard-Wall Radar Imaging" (HWRI) has been proposed when the electromagnetic waves cannot penetrate the shielding walls (such as metallic walls). The research methodology involves algorithm development combined with experimental results to gain more insights into the real microwave imaging system. First, we implemented the imaging system with the conventional time reversal DORT (Decomposition of Time-Reversal Operator) imaging algorithm and adapted it into a new signal processing technique (multiplicative array technique) to obtain the image in the proposed scenario. Second, after having identified the drawbacks of the rest imaging system, the imaging system is improved to distributed MIMO radar configuration. The new imaging algorithm is also developed based on the techniques of Direction-of-Arrival(DoA) estimation and adaptive nulling. From this algorithm, the experimental results show that the new imaging system can localize two targets correctly. To resolve the problem of spurious clutter reflection, a new unidirectional UWB antenna is developed using the technique crossed dipoles and integrated into a dual linear polarized array for the application of high-resolution two-dimensional imaging.