Prof. Erricolo: Millimeter-Wave Wide-Angle Beam-Steering by Leaky Wave Antenna with Liquid Crystal-based Phasing Structure and Metamaterial-Inspired Radiating Apertures

Overview

Abstract

An original liquid crystal (LC)-based substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) leaky-wave antenna is proposed. Inside the SIW, there is an embedded stripline sandwiched between an LC pool and another dielectric slab. The antenna couples the guided quasi-TEM mode into free space through a periodic set of complementary electric inductive-capacitive resonators. The antenna performs fixed-frequency continuous beam steering. A relatively wide beam scan angle is achieved by tuning the LC permittivity through an applied DC bias voltage to the stripline. The antenna has high realized gain through the entire scanning range (less than 1 dB loss), relatively wide bandwidth, and good tolerance to frequency drift and fabrication errors.

Brief Biography

Danilo Erricolo (Fellow, IEEE) received the Laurea degree of Doctor (summa cum laude) in electronics engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, in 1993 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Chicago, IL, USA, in 1998. He is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Director of Graduate Studies, the Director of the Andrew Electromagnetics Laboratory, and an adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at UIC. In 2017 he was nominated a University of Illinois Scholar. During the summer of 2009, he was an Air Force Faculty Fellow at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH, USA. He has authored or coauthored more than 290 publications in refereed journals and international conferences. He has served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (2002–2014), the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (2013–2016) and of Radio Science (2014–2016). In 2006, he was the Guest Editor of the special issues on RF effects on digital systems of the Electromagnetics Journal, and in 2012 he was the Lead Guest Editor of the special issue on Propagation models and inversion approaches for subsurface and through wall imaging, of the International Journal of Antennas and Propagation. His research interests are primarily in the areas of antenna design, electromagnetic propagation and scattering, high-frequency techniques, wireless communications, electromagnetic compatibility, the computation of special functions, and magnetic resonance imaging. Dr. Erricolo was elected Full Member of Commissions B, C and E of the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), a committee of the U.S. National Academies. He served as Chair (2009–2011), Vice Chair (2006–2008) and Secretary (2004–2005) of the USNC-URSI Commission E on Electromagnetic Environment and Interference. He was Chair of the USNC-URSI Ernest K. Smith Student Paper Competition (2009–2014); Vice-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee of the XXIX URSI General Assembly, held in Chicago, IL, USA in August 2008; and Member at Large of USNC-URSI (2012–2017). He served on the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Future Symposia Committee and on the IEEE AP-S/USNC-URSI Joint Meetings Committee (2006–2017 as a USNC-URSI representative). He was the General Chairman of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting, held in Chicago, IL, USA in July 2012. He was an Elected Member of the IEEE AP-S Administrative Committee (2012–2014); Chair of the IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer Program (2015–2016); and Chair of the Chicago Joint Chapter of the IEEE AP-S and Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (2011–2016). He has served on more than 40 conference technical program committees, chaired over 60 conference sessions and organized more than 20 special sessions at international scientific conferences. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation since August 2016.