Design of a Highly Miniaturized, Inherently Matched, Spherical Folded Dipole Antenna and Evaluation of its Quality Factor

<div>A highly miniaturized three-dimensional spherical folded dipole antenna has been reported, for which inherent impedance matching is achieved with respect to a practical source impedance by employing a simple series-LC loading combination, thereby engineering its input impedance. In order to maximize its bandwidth, the miniaturized antenna employs a spherical helix structure as the folded arm that occupies the full volume of the corresponding Chu sphere. A bifilar (two folded arms) and a quadrifilar (four folded arms) helix loaded folded dipole antenna are designed, and full-wave simulations show that both the resulting antennas demonstrate excellent impedance matching when miniaturized by 85% in comparison to a resonant dipole operating at the same frequency. Despite the high degree of miniaturization, the resulting radiation efficiencies for the bifilar and quadrifilar antennas are found to be 87.1% and 90.6%, respectively. Furthermore, various quality-factor definitions are explored for the quadrifilar antenna, and it is observed that the resulting quality factor is around 1.83 (1.22) times that predicted by the Chu (Thal) lower bound.</div>

Efficient Protection Scheme Based on Y-Source Circuit Breaker in Bi-Directional Zones for MVDC Micro-Grids

A new bi-directional circuit breaker is presented for medium-voltage dc (MVDC) systems. The Y-source impedance network topology is used to implement the breaker. The current transfer function is derived to show the frequency response and the breaker operation with the high frequencies. Mathematical analysis is achieved with different conditions of coupling among the breaker inductors. The minimum level of the magnetic coupling is determined, which is represented by the null condition. The effect of the turns-ratio on this condition is investigated as well. The breaker is designed with two types of fault conductance slope rates. The Y-source breaker is simulated, and the results verify the breaker operation during the fault condition and the load change. The results also demonstrate the effect of the coupling level on the minimum values of the source current when the fault occurs. Based on the expected fault type in the MVDC systems, the proposed breaker is developed to interrupt the overcurrent due to any of these fault types. A protection scheme is proposed for a 12-bus, two-level micro-grid, where the Y-source breakers are used in the bi-directional zones. The results verify the ability of the breaker to conduct and interrupt the current in both directions of the power flow.

Novel Battery-Less Sustainable Energy Harvester Scheme for On-board Electronic Units

With the rapid development in smart vehicles, the on-board unit is established for communication between the vehicle and toll collection booth for toll collection. However, providing a continuous power supply to such units has been a challenge. While features like compactness, low cost and simplicity are to be maintained, the accuracy and performance of the device are to be maintained intact. This paper proposes a battery-less energy harvester scheme as a solution to this power issue. Maximum energy transmission Several researches are conducted on obtaining maximum energy transmission through performance optimization in this domain. This paper provides maximum performance while minimizing the energy harvester transponder dimensions. The energy transmitted to the transponder is maximized considering the optimal source impedance. This provides power to the battery-less structure. The radio frequency to DC rectifier is provided with an optimal source impedance with the help of a small patch antenna. Utilization of a lossy matching network can be avoided through this technique. Inter-stage matching network is used for comparison of the function. The energy efficiency using the proposed scheme is increased by a factor of 10% when compared to the existing schemes.

Design of a Highly Miniaturized, Inherently Matched, Spherical Folded Dipole Antenna and Evaluation of its Quality Factor

<div>A highly miniaturized three-dimensional spherical folded dipole antenna has been reported, for which inherent impedance matching is achieved with respect to a practical source impedance by employing a simple series-LC loading combination, thereby engineering its input impedance. In order to maximize its bandwidth, the miniaturized antenna employs a bifilar spherical helix that maximizes use of the volume of the corresponding Chu sphere. Full-wave simulations show that the resulting antenna demonstrates excellent impedance matching and over 95% radiation efficiency even when miniaturized by 85% in comparison to a resonant dipole operating at the same frequency. Furthermore, various quality-factor definitions for the miniaturized spherical folded dipole antenna were estimated. It is observed that, owing to the use of proximate but non-overlapping resonances, two of these definitions fall below the Chu lower bound around the frequency of operation, resulting in a fractional bandwidth larger than that predicted by the Chu limit.</div>

Design of a Highly Miniaturized, Inherently Matched, Spherical Folded Dipole Antenna and Evaluation of its Quality Factor

<div>A highly miniaturized three-dimensional spherical folded dipole antenna has been reported, for which inherent impedance matching is achieved with respect to a practical source impedance by employing a simple series-LC loading combination, thereby engineering its input impedance. In order to maximize its bandwidth, the miniaturized antenna employs a bifilar spherical helix that maximizes use of the volume of the corresponding Chu sphere. Full-wave simulations show that the resulting antenna demonstrates excellent impedance matching and over 95% radiation efficiency even when miniaturized by 85% in comparison to a resonant dipole operating at the same frequency. Furthermore, various quality-factor definitions for the miniaturized spherical folded dipole antenna were estimated. It is observed that, owing to the use of proximate but non-overlapping resonances, two of these definitions fall below the Chu lower bound around the frequency of operation, resulting in a fractional bandwidth larger than that predicted by the Chu limit.</div>

Design of a Compact and Highly Efficient Energy Harvester System Suitable for Battery-Less Low Cost On-Board Unit Applications

This study addresses the general problem regarding the power supply in specific on-board unit (OBUs) solutions. In detail, this paper refers to a subset of the so-called electronic toll collection (ETC) applications such as assets control and vehicle identification, where simplicity, low costs, and maximum compactness represent the most important features. In this context, the next generation of OBUs, developed specifically with reference to such applications, will involve energy harvester-based battery-less techniques. Previous studies have mainly concentrated on performance optimization by achieving maximum energy transmission to the OBUs. This study discusses a technique suitable for both maximizing performance and minimizing the dimensions of transponder energy harvesters suitable for assets control and vehicle identification operating at 5.8 GHz. The technique assumes that an optimal source impedance exists that maximizes the energy transfer to the transponder, thus enabling its power supply in a battery-less configuration. We discuss a solution based on a compact patch antenna designed to exhibit this optimal source impedance to the RF-to-DC rectifier. This approach avoids the use of a lossy matching network. For the sake of comparison, the same function is compared with an equivalent development, which includes the interstage matching network between the antenna and the RF-to-DC rectifier. We introduce experimental results demonstrating that the ultracompact energy harvester optimized at −5 dBm of impinging power is capable of increasing both the charge current and energy efficiency from 340 to 450 μA and from 37% to 47%, respectively.