Midlands mm-Wave Lab: A versatile electromagnetic characterisation suite for future RF to millimetre-wave communication and sensing systems

在不太遥远的过去，天线是安装在桅杆或杆上的设备，因此它们的设计和特性与它们的环境无关，例如电视广播天线和雷达天线。近几十年来，随着天线被嵌入到其直接环境中的物体中，这种范例已经被取代，所述物体是移动的电话手机、膝上型计算机或飞机的机身或汽车的底盘。未来的发展表明，最先进的无线电技术将通过采用有源波控制技术而超越在其直接环境中嵌入天线。这种波控制技术包括设计具有可重构散射参数的天然和人工新材料。在受控环境中开发、验证和验证下一代天线所需的实验工作需要一种新型的测量设施，这种设施可以探索天线及其附近物体的同时辐射、近场和远场相互作用。该项目将建立这样一个独特的测量设施，覆盖从900 MHz到330 GHz的广泛频率范围。这样的设施将支持非常多样化的研究，包括5G和6G天线，物联网（IoT），传统和量子雷达，频率选择性表面和低RCS隐形材料，超表面和超材料，以及从材料科学到医疗保健研究等不同领域的电磁传感。这种灵活、集成和自动化的测量设施将使英国目前的能力超越现有的测试室。

In the not-too-distant past, antennas were devices which were mounted on a mast or pole and therefore their design and characterisation was independent of their environment e.g. TV broadcast antennas and radar antennas. This paradigm has been superseded in recent decades as antennas are embedded into objects in their immediate environment be those a mobile telephone handset, laptop, or the fuselage of an aircraft or chassis of a car. Future developments dictate that state-of-the-art radio technologies will go beyond the embedding of antennas in their immediate environment by adopting active wave control technologies. Such wave control technologies include the design of new materials, both natural and artificial, having reconfigurable scattering parameters. Experimental work needed to develop, characterise and validate the next generation of antennas in a controlled environment requires a new type of measurement facility which can allow for the simultaneous radiation, near-field and far-field interactions of antennas and objects in their vicinity to be explored. This project will establish such a unique measurement facility which will cover a wide range of frequencies from 900 MHz to 330 GHz. Such a facility will support an exceptionally diverse range of research, including 5G and 6G antennas, internet of things (IoT), conventional and quantum radar, frequency selective surfaces and low-RCS stealth materials, metasurfaces and metamaterials, and electromagnetic sensing across diverse domains ranging from materials science to healthcare research. Such a flexible, integrated and automated measurement facility will extend the current UK capability beyond existing chambers.