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mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications
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mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Radar Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 21813

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zhongxia Simon He

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Microwave Electronics Laboratory, Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Interests: millimeter and THz integrated circuits and packaging; THz sensing and imaging; wideband THz communication; millimeter antenna and metasurface
Dr. Nan Yang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Interests: terahertz communications; ultra-reliable and low-latency communications; massive MIMO systems; next generation multiple access; cyber-physical security; and molecular communications
Dr. Cheng Jin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Information and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Interests: millimeter and THz antennas and metasurface; THz radar sensors; wideband communication
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Giovanni Serafino

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Technologies for Communications, Information, and Perception (TeCIP) Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Interests: microwave photonics; photonics-assisted radars; photonics for space applications; photonic integrated circuits; photonics for 5G applications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Millimeter wave (mmW) signals have unique advantages in various sensing applications. For example, their short wavelength enhances localization accuracy and enables higher imaging resolution. Moreover, they can strongly interact with matter molecules for sensing, detection, and measurement, from biological tissues to gases in the atmosphere. With the advances of semiconductor technologies, the cost of mmW circuits has reduced dramatically with a higher level of integration and enhanced performance. This is especially true for photonic integrated circuits technology, allowing photonics to a role in this domain, largely providing mmW systems with flexibility and agility, at the same time guaranteeing high stability, thanks to their inherent coherency and wide operational bandwidth.

At present, electronic and opto-electronic systems for mmW applications are achieving the required technology maturity level to make possible a massive distribution of sensing networks. This Special Issue aims to attract contributions on the latest developments and discoveries of novel research in mmW sensing applications, related to the hardware, algorithm, and overall system level.

Topics to be covered

  • Design, analysis, characterization of mmW electronic integrated circuits for sensing applications;
  • Design, analysis, characterization of mmW sensing systems based on photonic integrated circuits;
  • Efficient design and implementation of mmW sensor systems for harsh environments, considering packaging and related critical components;
  • Design, analysis, characterization of networks of distributed mmW sensors;
  • mmW sensing system demonstration or mmW property study in real sensing scenarios;
  • Digital signal processing for distributed mmW sensors and data fusion.

Dr. Zhongxia Simon He
Dr. Nan Yang
Dr. Cheng Jin
Dr. Giovanni Serafino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • millimeter wave circuits and signals
  • photonic integrated circuits and signals
  • Millimeter wave sensing systems

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 4964 KiB  
Article
Substrateless Packaging for a D-Band MMIC Based on a Waveguide with a Glide-Symmetric EBG Hole Configuration
by Weihua Yu, Abbas Vosoogh, Bowu Wang and Zhongxia Simon He
Sensors 2022, 22(17), 6696; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22176696 - 04 Sep 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2157
Abstract
This paper presents a novel substrateless packaging solution for the D-band active e mixer MMIC module, using a waveguide line with a glide-symmetric periodic electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) hole configuration. The proposed packaging concept has the benefit of being able to control signal propagation [...] Read more.
This paper presents a novel substrateless packaging solution for the D-band active e mixer MMIC module, using a waveguide line with a glide-symmetric periodic electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) hole configuration. The proposed packaging concept has the benefit of being able to control signal propagation behavior by using a cost-effective EBG hole configuration for millimeter-wave- and terahertz (THz)-frequency-band applications. Moreover, the mixer MMIC is connected to the proposed hollow rectangular waveguide line via a novel wire-bond wideband transition without using any intermediate substrate. A simple periodical nail structure is utilized to suppress the unwanted modes in the transition. Additionally, the presented solution does not impose any limitations on the chip’s dimensions or shape. The packaged mixer module shows a return loss lower than 10 dB for LO (70–85 GHz) and RF (150–170 GHz) ports, achieving a better performance than that of traditional waveguide transitions. The module could be used as a transmitter or receiver, and the conversion loss shows good agreement in multiple samples. The proposed packaging solution has the advantages of satisfactory frequency performance, broadband adaptability, low production costs, and excellent repeatability for millimeter-wave- and THz-band systems, which would facilitate the commercialization of millimeter-wave and THz products. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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13 pages, 7461 KiB  
Article
Transmitter and Receiver Circuits for a High-Speed Polymer Fiber-Based PAM-4 Communication Link
by Frida Strömbeck, Mingquan Bao, Zhongxia Simon He and Herbert Zirath
Sensors 2022, 22(17), 6645; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22176645 - 02 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1386
Abstract
A high data rate RF-DAC and a power detector (PD) are designed and fabricated in a 250 nm indium phosphide (InP) double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) technology. A communication link using the Tx-Rx over polymer microwave fiber (PMF) is measured. The link consists [...] Read more.
A high data rate RF-DAC and a power detector (PD) are designed and fabricated in a 250 nm indium phosphide (InP) double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) technology. A communication link using the Tx-Rx over polymer microwave fiber (PMF) is measured. The link consists of a pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) modulator and a PD as a demodulator, as well as a one-meter-long dielectric waveguide. The working frequency range of the complete link is verified to be 110–150 GHz. The peak output power of the PAM modulator is 5 dBm, and it has a −3 dB bandwidth of 43 GHz. The PD consists of a parallel connected common emitter configured transistor and a common base configured transistor to suppress the odd-order harmonics at the PD’s output, as well as a stacked transistor to amplify the output signal. Tx and Rx chips, including pads, occupy a total area of only 0.83 mm2. The PMF link can support a PAM-4 signal with 22 Gbps data transmission, and a PAM-2 signal with 30 Gbps data transmission, with a bit error rate (BER) of <10−12, with demodulation performed in real time. Furthermore, the energy efficiency for the link (Tx + Rx) is 4.1 pJ/bit, using digital data input and receiving PAM-2 output (5.6 pJ/bit for PAM-4). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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21 pages, 5735 KiB  
Article
Non-Contact Detection of Vital Signs Based on Improved Adaptive EEMD Algorithm (July 2022)
by Didi Xu, Weihua Yu, Changjiang Deng and Zhongxia Simon He
Sensors 2022, 22(17), 6423; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22176423 - 25 Aug 2022
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2065
Abstract
Non-contact vital sign detection technology has brought a more comfortable experience to the detection process of human respiratory and heartbeat signals. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) is a noise-assisted adaptive data analysis method which can be used to decompose the echo data of [...] Read more.
Non-contact vital sign detection technology has brought a more comfortable experience to the detection process of human respiratory and heartbeat signals. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) is a noise-assisted adaptive data analysis method which can be used to decompose the echo data of frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar and extract the heartbeat and respiratory signals. The key of EEMD is to add Gaussian white noise into the signal to overcome the mode aliasing problem caused by original empirical mode decomposition (EMD). Based on the characteristics of clutter and noise distribution in public places, this paper proposed a static clutter filtering method for eliminating ambient clutter and an improved EEMD method based on stable alpha noise distribution. The symmetrical alpha stable distribution is used to replace Gaussian distribution, and the improved EEMD is used for the separation of respiratory and heartbeat signals. The experimental results show that the static clutter filtering technology can effectively filter the surrounding static clutter and highlight the periodic moving targets. Within the detection range of 0.5 m~2.5 m, the improved EEMD method can better distinguish the heartbeat, respiration, and their harmonics, and accurately estimate the heart rate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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17 pages, 7057 KiB  
Article
A 78.8–84 GHz Phase Locked Loop Synthesizer for a W-Band Frequency-Hopping FMCW Radar Transceiver in 65 nm CMOS
by Van-Son Trinh, Hyohyun Nam, Jeong-Moon Song and Jung-Dong Park
Sensors 2022, 22(10), 3626; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22103626 - 10 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2333
Abstract
A W-band integer-N phase-locked loop (PLL) for a frequency hopping frequency modulation continuous wave (FMCW) radar is implemented in 65-nm CMOS technology. The cross-coupled voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) was designed based on a systematic analysis of the VCO combined with its push-pull buffer to [...] Read more.
A W-band integer-N phase-locked loop (PLL) for a frequency hopping frequency modulation continuous wave (FMCW) radar is implemented in 65-nm CMOS technology. The cross-coupled voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) was designed based on a systematic analysis of the VCO combined with its push-pull buffer to achieve high efficiency and high output power. To provide a frequency hopping functionality without any overhead in the implementation, the center frequency of the VCO is steeply controlled by the gate voltage of the buffer, which effectively modifies the susceptance of the VCO load. A stand-alone VCO with the proposed architecture is fabricated, and it achieves an output power of 13.5 dBm, a peak power efficiency of 9.6%, and a tuning range of 3.5%. The phase noise performance of the VCO is −92.6 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz and −106.1 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset. Consisting of a third-order loop filter and a divider chain with a total modulus of 48, the locking range of the implemented PLL with the cross-coupled VCO is recorded from 78.84 GHz to 84 GHz, and its phase noise is −85.2 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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16 pages, 1664 KiB  
Article
Strongest Angle-of-Arrival Estimation for Hybrid Millimeter Wave Architecture with 1-Bit A/D Equipped at Transceivers
by Ruihan Li, Lou Zhao, Chunshan Liu and Meihua Bi
Sensors 2022, 22(9), 3140; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22093140 - 20 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1408
Abstract
This paper proposes an effective strongest angles of arrival (AoAs) estimation algorithm for a hybrid millimeter wave (mmWave) communication system with 1-bit analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog converters (A/Ds) equipped at transceivers. The proposed algorithm aims to reduce the required number of estimation overheads, while maintaining the [...] Read more.
This paper proposes an effective strongest angles of arrival (AoAs) estimation algorithm for a hybrid millimeter wave (mmWave) communication system with 1-bit analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog converters (A/Ds) equipped at transceivers. The proposed algorithm aims to reduce the required number of estimation overheads, while maintaining the root mean square error (RMSE) of strongest AoA estimates at the base station. We obtain the quantization thresholds of A/Ds for different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and numbers of antennas via numerical simulations, based on which, the strongest AoAs can be estimated with a small amount of overheads. The proposed algorithm is compared with conventional schemes including 1-bit FFT and 1-bit exhaustive search, as well as 1-bit Cramér-Rao lower bound. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm in terms of reducing estimation overheads while maintaining reasonable estimation performance in low SNRs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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13 pages, 6559 KiB  
Article
A 90 GHz Broadband Balanced 8-Way Power Amplifier for High Precision FMCW Radar Sensors in 65-nm CMOS
by Hyeonseok Lee, Van-Son Trinh and Jung-Dong Park
Sensors 2022, 22(9), 3114; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22093114 - 19 Apr 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2258
Abstract
We present a W-band 8-way wideband power amplifier (PA) for a high precision frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar in 65-nm CMOS technology. To achieve a broadband operation with an improved output power for a high range resolution and high distance coverage of [...] Read more.
We present a W-band 8-way wideband power amplifier (PA) for a high precision frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar in 65-nm CMOS technology. To achieve a broadband operation with an improved output power for a high range resolution and high distance coverage of FMCW radar sensors, a balanced architecture is employed with the Lange coupler which naturally combines the output powers from two 4-way push-pull PAs. By utilizing a transformer-based push-pull structure with a cross-coupled capacitive neutralization technique, the gate-drain capacitance of the 4-way PA is compensated for the stabilization with an improved power gain. Interstage matching was performed with transformers for a reduced loss from the matching network and minimal area occupation. The implemented balanced 8-way PA achieved a saturated output power (Psat) of 16.5 dBm, a 1-dB compressed output power (OP1dB) of 13.3 dBm, a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 9.9% at 90 GHz and 3-dB power bandwidth was 20.4 GHz (79.2–99.6 GHz). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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21 pages, 16372 KiB  
Article
Pedestrian Traffic Light Control with Crosswalk FMCW Radar and Group Tracking Algorithm
by Peter Nimac, Andrej Krpič, Boštjan Batagelj and Andrej Gams
Sensors 2022, 22(5), 1754; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22051754 - 23 Feb 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 8692
Abstract
The increased mobility requirements of modern lifestyles put more stress on existing traffic infrastructure, which causes reduced traffic flow, especially in peak traffic hours. This calls for new and advanced solutions in traffic flow regulation and management. One approach towards optimisation is a [...] Read more.
The increased mobility requirements of modern lifestyles put more stress on existing traffic infrastructure, which causes reduced traffic flow, especially in peak traffic hours. This calls for new and advanced solutions in traffic flow regulation and management. One approach towards optimisation is a transition from static to dynamic traffic light intervals, especially in spots where pedestrian crossing cause stops in road traffic flow. In this paper, we propose a smart pedestrian traffic light triggering mechanism that uses a Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar for pedestrian detection. Compared to, for example, camera-surveillance systems, radars have advantages in the ability to reliably detect pedestrians in low-visibility conditions and in maintaining privacy. Objects within a radar’s detection range are represented in a point cloud structure, in which pedestrians form clusters where they lose all identifiable features. Pedestrian detection and tracking are completed with a group tracking (GTRACK) algorithm that we modified to run on an external processor and not integrated into the used FMCW radar itself. The proposed prototype has been tested in multiple scenarios, where we focused on removing the call button from a conventional pedestrian traffic light. The prototype responded correctly in practically all cases by triggering the change in traffic signalization only when pedestrians were standing in the pavement area directly in front of the zebra crossing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue mm Wave Integrated Circuits Based Sensing Systems and Applications)
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