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

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 This paradigm has been superseded in recent decades as antennas are embedded into objects in their immediate environment be those a mobile telephone handset, laptop, or the fuselage of an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.