IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO.
4, APRIL 2013
High-Efficiency Periodic Sparse Microstrip Array
Based on Mutual Coupling
Shi-Wei Qu, Senior Member, IEEE, Chi Hou Chan, Fellow, IEEE, Ming-Yao Xia, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Zaiping Nie, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, a novel idea to reduce the number of
active elements in a large periodic array is presented and demon-
strated firstly by an -plane microstrip array. High aperture
efficiency can be achieved by making use of mutual coupling
between array elements, and then the total production cost of
the array is greatly decreased by reducing the number of active
array elements and associated components. A simple way to
control the mutual coupling of the microstrip array is given as an
example in this paper. Simulations and measurements show that
when the active element spacing is as large as ( is the
free-space wavelength at the operating frequency), a 18.3 dB
side lobe level (SLL) and an approximately equal aperture effi-
ciency can be achieved. No obvious performance degradations are
found compared to a conventional array with half the element
spacing and an identical total size. Then, simulations
and measurements of an -plane sparse array are given based
on the same idea, followed by the simulated results of a planar
two-dimensional (2-D) one.
Index Terms—Antenna arrays, microstrip antennas, mutual
coupling, sparse array, thinned array.
I. INTRODUCTION
A NTENNA arrays are the most useful category of antennas
in communication systems because they can provide high
directivity, very narrow beam, large aperture efficiency and a va-
riety of radiation patterns. Generally speaking, different appli-
cations require different topologies of array systems, and some
functional components associated with each element are also
different for transmitting or receiving purposes. In most cases,
several RF/microwave components, e.g., bandpass filters, T/R
modules, phase shifters, low-noise amplifiers or power ampli-
fiers, are connected to the array elements for signal reception
and processing or signal generation and transmission. Most of
total cost and weight of the array are often attributed to these
components, instead of the array elements themselves, so obvi-
ously the more the elements in an array, the larger the produc-
tion cost and weight are [1]. Thus, reducing the element number
Manuscript received February 19, 2012; revised August 04, 2012; accepted
December 15, 2012. Date of publication December 19, 2012; date of current
version April 03, 2013. This work was supported in part by the Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC) Project under Grant 61101036, Grant 61231001,
Grant 60931004, and Grant 61201002, and by the Fundamental Research Funds
for the Central Universities under Grant ZYGX2010J028.
S.-W. Qu, M.-Y. Xia, and Z.-P. Nie are with the School of Electronic Engi-
neering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC),
Chengdu 611731, China (e-mail: dyon.qu@gmail.com).
C. H. Chan is with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University
of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2012.2235397
0018-926X/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE
1963
naturally becomes a straightforward method toward a lower cost
array.
Sparse or thinned arrays, generally aperiodic, are one of the
most classical examples with reduced element number. Design
of a large aperiodic sparse array is generally based on some
complicated optimization method for the desired electrical
performances, e.g., almost difference sets [2], particle swarm
optimization [3], convex optimization [4], Bayesian compres-
sive sampling [5], matrix pencil method [6], and cross-entropy
method [7]. Moreover, they are often difficult to build in prac-
tice due to their customary aperiodicity. On the other hand,
for a periodic arrangement over an identical aperture, fewer
elements means a larger element spacing, consequently causing
higher side lobe level (SLL) and lower aperture efficiency, es-
pecially as the element spacing is over ( is the free-space
wavelength at the operating frequency).
In the past decades, several attempts were made to build
another type of arrays with reduced number of feeding ports
(or active elements) for high-gain operation, e.g., the famous
Yagi–Uda antenna with endfire radiation patterns [8], employ-
ment of a metamaterial superstrate with a relative permittivity
close to zero [9], [10], and a patch antenna loaded with arti-
ficial magnetic conductor surfaces [11]. Although high-gain
characteristics and a simple structure with only one feeding
port are achieved, possibilities of their potential applications in
widespread phased arrays are reduced to the lowest level.
In [12], another attempt was made to overcome the above
mentioned difficulties. Reljic et al. presented an idea to build
broadside antenna arrays with passive elements based upon sim-
ilar idea to the Yagi–Uda antenna. In that paper, currents on the
passive dipole elements can be indirectly induced by tuning the
distance between the array and the ground plane, equivalent to
adjusting the mutual coupling between the active and passive
elements. However, the profile of the presented array in [12]
should be tuned to as large as for the largest aperture ef-
ficiency and broadside beam, meanwhile the whole array struc-
ture is not given. In [13], two passive microstrip elements are
connected to two active ones by slotline stubs in a circularly
polarized 4-element linear array, thus the passive elements can
be indirectly fed by the energy coupled from the active ones,
causing simple structure and less loss in feeding network. How-
ever, it suffers from a small operating bandwidth and little possi-
bility of beam scanning. Meanwhile, only linear arrays were re-
ported, and no two-dimensional (2-D) array can be found based
on similar idea so far to the authors’ knowledge.
In our previous works [14], a novel microstrip array is pre-
sented, and active and passive elements are staggered linearly
1964
Fig. 1. 2-D antenna array model. The mutual coupling between neigh-
boring elements along the ( ) and ( ) planes are denoted by
, respectively.
along the E plane, i.e. only half the number of array elements
are directly fed. Although an ideal model is given and ana-
lyzed, no array prototype and measured results can be refer-
enced. In this paper, the idea in [14] is extended to build a peri-
odic sparse array with a large active element spacing (note that
it is called sparse array because its element spacing is as large
as ) and to check its comparative directivity to a conven-
tional closely-spaced fully-fed array. Then, an -plane periodic
sparse microstrip array, an improved design based on our pre-
vious investigations [15], is presented using the same idea, fol-
lowed by initial studies on a 2-D sparse array.
II. PROPOSED IDEA AND OPERATING PRINCIPLE
Fig. 1 shows an 2-D array model placed in the
plane. It is assumed that the array is linearly polarized, and its
- and -planes are aligned with the and planes, respec-
tively. In the figure, mutual coupling between neighboring ele-
ments along the axis is denoted by , implying mutual cou-
pling in the -plane, and similarly that along the axis in the
-plane is denoted by . The mutual coupling between non-
neighboring or diagonal elements is omitted due to the weak
intensity. For the ease of design, people generally make great
effort to avoid the mutual coupling or suppress it as much as
possible by the use of high impedance surface (HIS) [16] and
other structures [17]. Otherwise, its effects are sometimes taken
into account in the design [18]. However, difficulties in fabrica-
tions or designs are significantly increased by the complicated
design procedure or array structures resulting from the suppres-
sion of mutual coupling.
Actually, mutual coupling does not always have adversary
effects, and it is deliberately exploited to improve array per-
formance, e.g., broadening the array operating bandwidth [19],
[20] or enhancing the array gain [8], [21]. In this design, a sig-
nificant reduction in array complexity and weight as well as ef-
ficiency improvement by decreasing the power loss in feeding
network are desired. Specifically, a new periodic array with
sparse element distributions along the - or -plane will be
formed when only the elements with or
in a periodic array of Fig. 1 are directly
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2013
and Fig. 2. Geometry of the demonstrating microstrip array with controlled mutual
coupling. (a) Three-dimensional (3-D) view, (b) top view and (c) side view of
one element. (d) Top view of two-element combination. ,
and , , , ,
and , in mm.
fed. For short, we name them an - or -plane sparse array,
and moreover if only the elements with are
excited, it is called a 2-D sparse array here for easy reference.
However, the periodic sparse array, as introduced in the first
section, generally features higher side lobes, smaller aperture
efficiency and lower gain when compared to the conventional
closely-spaced fully-fed array in Fig. 1. It is actually because
very weak power can be coupled to the passive elements in
commonly reported conventional microstrip arrays [21]. More
importantly, the weak power on the passive elements will ran-
domly contribute to the array performances, i.e. either positive
or negative effects is possible.
If one can effectively manipulate the mutual coupling among
the newly developed sparse array, it will be possible to transfer
a part of energy on the active elements to the passive ones with
properly controlled magnitude and phase, and consequently
constructive interactions between the radiated fields of all
elements will be achieved, followed by an improved aperture
efficiency, fewer active elements, fewer required output ports
of the feeding network, and also fewer other necessary com-
ponents associated with each active element. So far, a novel
high-efficiency -plane ( -plane, 2-D) sparse array can be
built by controlling ( , and ).
III. GEOMETRY OF -PLANE SPARSE ARRAY
In order to demonstrate the proposed idea, we consider an
-plane linear microstrip array at around 6 GHz, which was
initially investigated in our previous work and only simulated
results were presented there [14]. The geometry is repeated in
Fig. 2 for easy reference. Two boundary conditions of electric
walls along directions in Fig. 2(a) indicate that this config-
uration is actually an infinitely long periodic structure with pe-
riodicity of . In the array, only the active elements, covering
one half the number of its elements and staggered with the pas-
sive ones along the axis, are differentially fed by two ideal
ports in simulations, i.e., two probes denoted by and .
QU et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENCY PERIODIC SPARSE MICROSTRIP ARRAY BASED ON MUTUAL COUPLING
Fig. 3. Simulated electric field distributions on the plane where the patches are
placed. (a) Magnitude distribution. (b) Electric field vector distribution.
As we all know, the electric fields are distributed like a sine
function along two radiating edges of a rectangular microstrip
antenna. When a strip is connected to its radiating edge, the
coupling from the patch to the strip will depend on the char-
acteristic impedance and position of the strip, which is a sim-
plest method to control the power coupled from the patch. Other
structures, e.g., proximity-coupled strips under the patch, can
also be adopted for the same purpose.
Then, to achieve symmetric radiation patterns, symmetric an-
tenna structure with two coupling strips in Fig. 2(a) is neces-
sary. Next, the passive patches can be fed by the power coupled
from the active patch through the strips. Under the conditions of
proper phase angle and magnitude of the mutual coupling , and with the most left and right passive patches as shown in
the in-phase currents on the active and passive patches can be
achieved, and consequently they can constructively contribute
to the broadside radiation.
In this design, can be controlled by carefully tuning the
strip width and position, i.e., and . From our previous
studies on an infinitely long linear array in Fig. 2(d) [14], the
achieved directivity will be maximized close to that of a conven-
tional fully-fed array for a suitable . It is because the present
can deliver a half of the power from the active patch to the
passive patch in phase, and then all patches will positively con-
tribute to the broadside radiation. Moreover, the parameter
changes the operating frequency rather than the array directivity
due to the changed phase angle of caused by the varied elec-
trical length of the strips.
1965
Fig. 4. Two possible truncations of the proposed -plane sparse array. The
ground sizes of Options I and II are 100 mm 300 mm and 100
mm 400 mm , respectively. For easy comparisons, both arrays
are differentially fed by ideal ports (without feeding network). (a) Option I, trun-
cated array with three passive and four active patches. (b) Option II, truncated
array with five passive and four active patches.
Fig. 3 shows the electric field distribution of an optimized
array. It is obvious that the electric fields on and near both the
active and the passive patches are almost evenly distributed in
Fig. 3(a) and also in-phase as shown in Fig. 3(b), which mean
that the mutual coupling can almost perfectly redistribute the
feeding energy on all patches and then the array can maintain
similar broadside directivity or aperture efficiency of a conven-
tional fully-fed one with element spacing of .
Some advantages of this design are addressed in [14]. Be-
sides, the proposed idea can be adopted not only to build an
-plane linear sparse array, but also to construct a 2-D array
with sparse properties along the -plane, arbitrary element ar-
rangement as wanted in the –plane, and little performance
degradation.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATIONS
All simulations are performed by Ansoft High Frequency
Structure Simulator (HFSS), commercial software based on the
finite element method (FEM) in this paper. To verify the validity
of the proposed idea and simulations, an array prototype should
be designed, fabricated and measured. Compared to the infinite
ideal array model, the practical antenna array must be finite in
size, thus there are two options, i.e., the microstrip array without
Fig. 4(a) and (b), denoted as Options I and II. It should be noted
that the feeding networks are not included in the models in order
to remove their influence, and both arrays are ideally fed by four
pairs of differential ports with equal amplitude and in phase.
Fig. 5 presents the discrepancies of two arrays in simulated
antenna gain and radiation patterns caused by truncation effects.
The aperture efficiency in the figure is calculated by
(1)
where , , and are the wavelength at the operating fre-
quency, directivity, and total size of the array (here includes
the dimensions of ground plane), respectively. It can be ob-
served that the two arrays show similar around the designed
1966
Fig. 5. Simulated results of 4-active-element arrays in Fig. 4(a) and (b).
(a) Comparisons of array gain and aperture efficiency. (b) Comparisons of
array patterns.
frequencies (note that an over-sized ground in this design de-
termines a relative small ), but Option II shows larger gain
bandwidth and higher broadside gain due to two more passive
patches and larger physical size. Additionally, it can also be con-
cluded that the array presents better performances as the model
is closer to an ideally infinite one. However, the overall size of
Option II is bigger due to the inclusion of two additional passive
elements.
Option I was selected to verify the correctness of simulations.
Design of the feeding network is easy and straightforward, as
shown in Fig. 6(a), and seven power dividers are employed to
divide the electromagnetic waves into four parts to feed each
element, and the 180 phase delay can be achieved by the dif-
ferent length of two microstrip lines by half a guided wave-
length. Photographs of the fabricated array prototype are shown
in Fig. 6(b) and (c), and an aluminum plate is employed for sup-
porting purpose.
Fig. 7 shows the simulated and measured broadside gain and
standing-wave ratios (SWRs), and measurements agree reason-
ably well with simulations. The array presents a measured band-
width of 13.7% for , i.e., 5.45 6.25 GHz, and the
gain variation of 3.8 dBi was observed, from 12.25 to 16.05 dBi.
However, simulations show that the antenna has a little narrower
impedance bandwidth (5.48 6.15 GHz) and higher broadside
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2013
Fig. 6. Feeding network and photographs of the fabricated antenna prototype.
(a) Geometry of the feeding network of the prototype. (b) Photograph of top
layer. (c) Photograph of bottom layer.
Fig. 7. Simulated and measured SWRs and gains of the -plane spare array.
gain (13.7 17.8 dBi), which are caused by fabrication tol-
erances and more importantly the more lossy materials in the
prototype than what the manufacturer specified. Otherwise, it
can also be observed from Fig. 7 that both simulated and mea-
sured operating bandwidths are much larger than a few percent
of a single probe-fed isolated patch antenna [21], and from this
perspective, the proposed idea has similar functions to draw the
lower edge frequency downwards and consequently to enlarge
the operating bandwidth [19], [20]. Fig. 8 gives the simulated
and measured radiation patterns at 6 GHz, in which good agree-
ments between simulations and measurements can also prove
the validity of simulations.
To clearly show the advantages of the proposed idea, Table I
presents comparisons between the demonstrating microstrip
QU et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENCY PERIODIC SPARSE MICROSTRIP ARRAY BASED ON MUTUAL COUPLING
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the -plane sparse array
at 6 GHz.
TABLE I
PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF THREE ARRAYS
: Element number, determining total cost and complexity of array
: Peak broadside directivity
: Aperture efficiency, relative to the whole ground size
: Impedance bandwidth
: Side lobe level at the frequency point with the highest gain
array, a conventional fully-fed one with element spacing
, and a sparse microstrip array with . All
elements in the three arrays are ideally fed with an ideal source
of the same magnitude and phase (without feeding network
included in each model). To cover an identical area, seven
elements are required for the conventional microstrip array, and
it also features a simulated SLL of 13.7 dB, approximately
equal to the theoretical value of 13.3 dB. Although obtaining
the highest directivity, it operates at higher frequencies and
consequently shows medium aperture efficiency. The sparse
array with four elements in total, as expected, presents the
1967
Fig. 9. Comparisons of directivity versus frequencies of three arrays in Table I.
(All elements in the arrays are differentially fed by ideal ports, and no feeding
networks are taken into consideration to highlight the properties of arrays them-
selves.)
lowest aperture efficiency and the highest SLL. Fig. 9 shows
directivities of three arrays versus frequency, and the maximum
values are presented at around 6, 6.4, and 5.8 GHz, respectively.
Thus, advantages of the proposed one can be clearly seen, i.e.,
the best aperture efficiency and the minimum active element
number.
For comparison purpose, the 7-element dipole array in [12]
can present 16.5-dBi directivity as the total antenna area is
, and the obtained SLL and the antenna bandwidth
are only 12 dB and 10%, respectively, but its aperture
efficiency is only 30.2% because microstrip antenna elements
generally show higher gain properties than dipoles. Moreover,
the antenna profile is as large as for the highest gain,
indicating the method is not effective enough to redistribute
the electromagnetic energy over the array aperture. In another
paper [13], a 4-element circular patch array shows poorer per-
formances, i.e. a measured gain of only 9.57 dBi, very small
bandwidth (impedance bandwidth 3%), and a 10-dB SLL,
respectively. The antenna total efficiency is only 52.6%, and no
reasons or explanations can be found in that paper.
V. FURTHER RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Potential engineering applications of the proposed method
is not limited in the -plane sparse array. In this section, an
-plane sparse microstrip array is first demonstrated and also
verified by experiments, and meanwhile initial explorations on
a 2-D sparse array are also given.
A. H-Plane Sparse Microstrip Array and Results
The geometry of the -plane sparse microstrip array is
shown in Fig. 10, including top view, side view, feeding
network and photograph of the fabricated prototype, and an
-probe feeding structure [22] is employed in this design. Patch
elements are etched on the top side of a substrate layer with a
relative permittivity of 2.2 and thickness , and
the strips and the -probes are placed on its bottom side. The
feeding network in Fig. 10(c) is printed on the other substrate
with a relative permittivity of 2.65 and thickness
and placed under the aluminum ground plane. The mutual
coupling between array elements can be easily controlled by
the strips with enlarged rectangular ends, and the highest gain
1968 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2013

Fig. 10. Geometry of the -plane periodic sparse array and photograph of the
array prototype. , , , , ,
, , , , , , ,
, , , , , , ,
, , and ground size 270 100. (a) Top view. (b) Side view. Fig. 12. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the -plane array.
(c) Feeding network. (d) Photograph of the array prototype.

frequency band. Fig. 12 shows the simulated and measured radi-

Fig. 11. Simulated and measured SWRs and gains of the -plane array.
will be obtained by tuning four parameters, i.e., , , ,
and . After optimization, the operating frequency is located
at 5.7 GHz, and values of all parameters are given in the caption
of the figure.
The simulated and measured broadside gains and SWRs of
the prototype are presented in Fig. 11. The antenna shows a sim-
ulated impedance bandwidth of 9.7% for , i.e., 5.39
5.96 GHz, and a broadside gain of over 14 dBi with a peak gain
of 16.2 dBi at 5.7 GHz. Comparatively, the measured results are
over 10% for , i.e., 5.41 over 6 GHz, and 13.4
15 dBi, respectively, and the gain difference between simula-
tion and measurement is 0.5 1.7 dBi in the whole operating
ation patterns at 5.7 GHz, and they agree well with each other.
Therefore, measured results can prove validity of simulations
again.
The results mentioned in this section prove that the method
can be employed to construct an -plane periodic sparse array
in which elements can be arbitrarily arranged along the -plane.
It should be noted that it shows simpler structures, compared
to our previously reported H-plane periodic sparse patch array
based on the same idea [15]. Only one substrate layer is adopted
to support both the patch elements and the strips, and all vertical
connections between the patch elements and the strips can be
avoided without performance degradation, and reliability of the
whole antenna array can be further improved.
B. Initial Exploration on 2-D Sparse Array
Following successful designs of the - and -plane sparse
arrays, the 2-D arrays are not very difficult to conceive. How-
ever, there will be several topologies to properly arrange the
passive and active elements, and only initial explorations on a
3 3 microstrip array shown in Fig. 13 are given to demon-
strate that the proposed idea in this paper can also be applied to
a planar array, and likewise for brevity. In the figure, the patch
layer and the structures for controlling the mutual coupling
and are printed on both sides of the first substrate layer
with a relative permittivity of 2.2 and thickness of 1 mm. The
QU et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENCY PERIODIC SPARSE MICROSTRIP ARRAY BASED ON MUTUAL COUPLING
Fig. 13. Geometry of the proposed 2-D sparse array (in mm). There are nine
patch elements in total, and only two of them are active (directly fed). Ground
size . (a) Top view. (b) Side view.
Fig. 14. Simulated directivity radiation patterns of the 2-D sparse array at
4.5 GHz in the (E) and (H) planes.
second substrate with identical relative permittivity and thick-
ness of 1.5 mm are placed between the ground and the first sub-
strate layer for supporting purpose. Some critical dimensions
are given in the figure, and after careful parametric optimiza-
tion for the highest directivity, the impedance matching can be
performed based on the obtained parameters and then the de-
signed feeding network can be placed under the ground plane,
similar to what is shown in Figs. 6 and 10.
The 2-D sparse array operates at relatively lower frequencies
due to the minimizing effect of the second substrate layer, and
it presents the highest directivity of 16.5 dBi at 4.5 GHz. The
simulated directivity radiation patterns at 4.5 GHz are shown
in Fig. 14, and comparatively a conventional fully-fed 9-ele-
ment square array shows 17.4-dBi directivity at the same fre-
quency. For ease of comparison, geometries, maximum direc-
tivities, aperture efficiencies, and SLLs of three proposed sparse
arrays in this paper are listed in Table II.
As an initial exploration on 2-D periodic sparse array, the
array structure given in this paper is only one of several possible
solutions, and other topologies based on the proposed idea can
be studied if interested, which is an open topic about the periodic
sparse arrays and also our research objective in the next step.
1969
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF THREE PROPOSED ARRAYS
: Aperture efficiency, relative to the whole ground size
VI. CONCLUSION
The novel method to build a high-efficiency periodic sparse
array by controlling the mutual coupling is proposed in this
paper. It is demonstrated firstly by an -plane microstrip array
with a large active element spacing, and by controlling the
mutual coupling properly, the array can show similar aperture
efficiency to its counterpart of a conventional closely spaced
fully-fed microstrip array. Meanwhile, the array feeding net-
work can be greatly simplified and the reduction in antenna
gain and efficiency caused by the loss of the feeding network
can also be improved. Then, successful designs of an -plane
sparse microstrip array and a 2-D planar one prove extensive
potential applications of the proposed idea.
Although this research makes some progress toward the final
objective to build a novel periodic sparse array with beam scan-
ning ability and reduced array production cost, the proposed
schematic in this paper cannot scan their beam yet because the
mutual coupling is just simply enhanced by a few strips, and the
phase characteristics of currents coupled to the passive patches
cannot be tuned. Thus, more works are needed to build a peri-
odic sparse array with phased beams, and the most critical issue
will be on flexible controlling of mutual coupling by more ef-
fective ways. However, the developed array so far can be used
at least in one-dimensional beam scanning systems.
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Shi-Wei Qu (S’08–M’11–SM’12) was born in
He’nan province, China, in October, 1980. He
received the B.Eng. and M.Sci. degrees from the
University of Electronic Science and Technology
of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2001 and
2006, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in the City
University of Hong Kong (CityU), in October 2009.
He is currently an Associate Professor in School of
Electronic Engineering, UESTC. From 2009 to 2010,
he worked as a COE (Global Center of Excellence)
Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Fellow in To-
hoku University, Sendai, Japan. From 2001 to 2002, he worked for the 10th
Institute of Chinese Information Industry. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Re-
search Assistant in the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University
of Hong Kong. He has authored or coauthored over 30 internationally refereed
papers and over 20 international conference papers. From 2007 to 2010, he pub-
lished his researches about UWB bowtie antennas and cavity-backed bowtie an-
tennas in seven papers on IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS PROPAGATION.
His research interests include UWB antennas and arrays, phased arrays, and
millimeter-wave antennas and arrays.
Chi Hou Chan (S’86–M’86–SM’00–F’02) received
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,Urbana,
IL, USA, in 1987.
He joined the Department of Electronic Engi-
neering, City University of Hong Kong, China,
in 1996 and was promoted to Chair Professor of
Electronic Engineering in 1998. From 1998 to 2009,
he was first Associate Dean then Dean of College
of Science and Engineering. He has been Acting
Provost of the University since July 2009. His
research interests cover computational electromagnetics, antennas, microwave
and millimeter-wave components and systems, and RFICs.
Prof. Chan received the U.S. National Science Foundation Presidential
Young Investigator Award in 1991 and the Joint Research Fund for Hong Kong
and Macau Young Scholars, National Science Fund for Distinguished Young
Scholars, China, in 2004. For teaching, he received the outstanding teacher
awards in EE Department at CityU in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2008. Students he
supervised also received numerous awards including the Third (2003) and First
(2004) Prizes in the IEEE International Microwave Symposium Student Paper
Contests, the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Graduate Fellowship
for 2004–2005, Undergraduate/Pre-Graduate Scholarships for 2006–2007 and
2007–2008, and the 2007 International Fulbright Science and Technology
Fellowship offered by the US Department of State.
Ming-Yao Xia (M’00–SM’03) received the Master
and Ph.D. (first-class honors) degrees in electrical
engineering and from the Institute of Electronics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences (IECAS), in 1988 and
1999, respectively.
From 1988 to 2002, he was with IECAS as an
Engineer and a Senior Engineer. He was a Visiting
Scholar at the University of Oxford, U.K., from
October 1995 to October 1996. From June 1999 to
August 2000 and from January 2002 to June 2002,
he was a Senior Research Assistant and a Research
Fellow, respectively, with the City University of Hong Kong. He joined
Peking University as an Associate Professor in 2002 and was promoted to
Full Professor in 2004. He moved to the University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China as a Chang-Jiang Professor nominated by the Ministry
of Education of China in 2010. His research interests include many aspects
of electromagnetic theory and applications, such as wave propagation and
scattering, microwave remote sensing, antennas and microwave components.
Dr. Xia was a recipient of the Young Scientist Award of the URSI in 1993. He
was awarded the first-class prize on Natural Science by the Chinese Academy of
Sciences in 2001. He was the recipient of the Foundation for Outstanding Young
Investigators presented by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
in 2008.
Zaiping Nie (SM’96) was born in Xi’an, China,
in 1946. He received the B.S. degree in radio
engineering and the M.S. degree in electromagnetic
field and microwave technology from the Chengdu
Institute of Radio Engineering (now University
of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 1968 and 1981,
respectively.
From 1987 to 1989, he was a Visiting Scholar with
the Electromagnetics Laboratory, University of Illi-
nois, Urbana, IL, USA. Currently, he is a Professor
with the Department of Electromagnetic Engineering, UESTC. He is author
or coauthor of over 300 journal papers. His research interests include compu-
tational electromagnetics and its applications, antenna theory and techniques,
electromagnetic scattering and inverse scattering, field, and waves in inhomo-
geneous media.