Design of a quadrotor micro air vehicle

In this paper, we present the design and development details of a micro air vehicle (MAV) built around a quadrotor configuration. A survey of implemented MAVs suggests that a quadrotor design has several advantages over other configurations, especially in the context of swarm intelligence applications. Our design approach consists of three stages. However, the focus of this paper is restricted to the first stage that involves selection of crucial components such as motor-rotor pair, battery source, and structural material. The application of MAVs are broad-ranging, from reconnaissance to search and rescue, and have immense potential in the rapidly advancing field of swarm intelligence.

Design and Optimization of Broadband Micromachined Antenna

Performance improvement of a micromachined patch antenna operating at 30 GHz with a capacitively coupled feed arrangement is presented here. Such antennas are useful for monolithic integration with active components. Specifically, micromachining can be employed to achieve a low dielectric constant region under the patch which causes (i) the suppression of surface waves and hence the increase in radiation efficiency and (ii) increase in the bandwidth. The performance of such a patch antenna can be significantly improved by selecting a coupled feed arrangement. We have optimized the dimensions and location of the capacitive feeding strip to get the maximum improvement in bandwidth. Since this is a totally planar arrangement, and does not involve any stacked structures, this antenna is easy to fabricate using standard microfabrication techniques. The antenna element thus designed has a -10 dB bandwidth of 1600 MHz

Design of MMSE filterbank precoder and equalizer for MIMO frequency selective channels

In this paper, we consider the problem of designing minimum mean squared error (MMSE) filterbank precoder and equalizer for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) frequency selective channels. We derive the conditions to be satisfied by the optimal precoder-equalizer pair, and provide an iterative algorithm for solving them. The optimal design is very general, in that it is not constrained by channel dimensions, channel order, channel rank, or the input constellation. We also discuss some pertinent difierences between the filterbank approach and the space-time approach to the design of optimal precoder and equalizer. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed design performs better than the space-time systems while supporting a higher data rate.