Keynote and Invited Speakers

Keynote and Invited Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Cecilia Cappellin, Head of Applied Electromagnetics Team, TICRA, Denmark

Cecilia Cappellin joined TICRA in 2004, where she is currently Head of the Applied Electromagnetics Team and Product Lead for Reflector Systems Designs.

For the past decade she has been leading numerous projects funded by the European Space Agency dealing with electromagnetic modelling of reflector antennas, including a number of activities related to the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission and the electrical design of the new dual compensated compact antenna test range for the upcoming HERTZ 2.0 facility. She actively participates in the test and development cycle of all TICRA software products and assists TICRA’s customers under their technical support contract.

Cecilia received her MSc degree in telecommunication engineering from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2004 and her PhD degree from the Technical University of Denmark in 2007. During her PhD she developed a novel antenna diagnostics technique for spherical near-field antenna measurements.

Innovation and developments in reflector antenna modelling and applications

Reflector antennas remain the most commonly employed type of antenna in space. Their large bandwidth, high gain, and low losses make them very attractive for telecommunication, television broadcasting, internet connectivity, Earth observation and science.

While today this may be self-evident, the design of reflector antennas for space applications has nonetheless been a challenging task from the very beginning. To model and subsequently optimize reflector antennas, highly accurate and fast computational methods were necessary. As the needs of science and of the commercial space business evolved, technology and modelling were compelled to develop specialized algorithms capable of pushing the boundaries of antenna design and analysis. In this talk, we present the story of about how reflector modelling for space applications started, matured, is still evolving, and how visionary missions alongside the work of world-class engineers walked side-by-side to ensure technological development and progress in science, Earth observation, and telecommunication.

Prof. Daniel M. Mittleman, Professor at School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI/USA

Dr. Mittleman received his B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988, and his M.S. in 1990 and Ph.D. in 1994, both in physics from the University of California, Berkeley , under the direction of Dr. Charles Shank . He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories as a post-doctoral member of the technical staff, working first on a terawatt laser system, and then on terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and imaging. Dr. Mittleman joined the ECE Department at Rice University in September 1996. In 2015, he moved to the School of Engineering at Brown University . His research interests involve the science and technology of terahertz radiation. He is a Fellow of the OSA, the APS, and the IEEE, and is a 2018 recipient of the Humboldt Research Award. In 2018-2020, he served a three-year term as Chair of the International Society for Infrared Millimeter and Terahertz Waves, and received the Society's Exceptional Service Award in 2022. In 2023-2025, he is a Mercator Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), in affiliation with the Meteracom project.

Absolute security for broadband terahertz wireless links

The recent dramatic growth in interest in the use of high-frequency (millimeter-wave and terahertz) carrier waves for wireless communications has spurred a great deal of research activity. One key topic of current interest is that of the security of such links, and their resilience against malicious attacks. These considerations are quite distinct from those related to security at lower frequencies (below 6 GHz), not only because of the high directionality that such high-frequency links will inevitably require, but also because of numerous other unique characteristics, including the very high free-space path loss, losses due to water vapor absorption lines, and the frequency-dependent diffraction patterns that almost inevitably emerge in the far field of most transmitters. These differences offer new opportunities for eavesdroppers or jammers to implement a successful attack, but also new possibilities for counter-measures that can be implemented at the physical layer of the system. Here, we present a few examples to illustrate the unique security considerations that arise in the context of high-frequency wireless links.

Prof. Gabriel M. Rebeiz, Distinguished Professor, Member of the National Academy, Wireless Communications Industry Endowed Chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of California, San Diego

Prof. Gabriel M. Rebeiz is Member of the National Academy (elected for his work on phased-arrays) and is a Distinguished Professor and the Wireless Communications Industry Endowed Chair at the University of California, San Diego. He is an IEEE Fellow and is the recipient of the IEEE MTT Microwave Prize (2000, 2014, 2020) all for phased-arrays. His 2x2 and 4x4 RF-beamforming architectures are now used by Renesas, ADI, NXP, Infineon, Sivers, Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, Boeing and others, and most companies developing communication and radar systems. All SATCOM affordable phased-arrays are based on his work and architectures. He has published 900 IEEE papers with an H-index of 102 and has graduated 122 PhD students including the former CEO of Qualcomm and several VPs in the communications and defense industry.

Silicon-Based Phased-Arrays for SATCOM, 5G and 6G: We Solved the Puzzle! Now what else to do?

Affordable phased-arrays, built using low-cost silicon chips, have become the technology of choice for high data-rate terrestrial (5G) and satellite (SATCOM) systems due to their high gain, electronically steerable patterns, high tolerance to interference and adaptive nulling capabilities. They have also become the backbone of all LEO satellites both at the payload level and at the user-terminal. A Starlink Ku-band Phased-Array user terminal with 1016 elements is $500, which is 50 cents per element! A Ka-band Amazon Kuiper terminal with ~1000 elements is $400-500. This has revolutionized satellite communications and millions of terminals are now built each year serving dozens of countries around the world. These advances have reshaped our communication and sensor systems, and we are currently changing our infrastructure from the Marconi-Era systems driven by low-gain antenna systems to the Directive Communications era where every antenna, every beam, every sensor has high antenna gain and is electronically steered. This talk summarizes our work in this area, presents some amazing/unbelievable systems, and concludes with future 5G-Advanced and 6G systems where every device will be connected at Gbps speeds. And all done using silicon RFICs and low-cost printed-circuit boards!!

Invited Speakers

Dr. Goutam Chattopadhyay, Senior Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California, USA

Goutam Chattopadhyay is a Senior Scientist at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology and a Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA. He has been a BEL Distinguished Visiting Chair Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India and an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, in 2000. He is a Fellow of IEEE (USA) and IETE (India), Track Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, and the President-Elect for IEEE MTT-S for 2024.

His research interests include microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz receiver systems and radars, and development of space instruments for the search for life beyond Earth.

He has more than 350 publications in international journals and conferences and holds more than twenty patents. He also received more than 35 NASA technical achievement and new technology invention awards. He received the NASA-JPL People Leadership Award in 2023, IEEE Region-6 Engineer of the Year Award in 2018, Distinguished Alumni Award from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), India in 2017. He was the recipient of the best journal paper award in 2020 and 2013 by IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, best paper award for antenna design and applications at the European Antennas and Propagation conference (EuCAP) in 2017, and IETE Prof. S. N. Mitra Memorial Award in 2014 and IETE Biman Bihari Sen Memorial Award in 2022.

Terahertz Antennas and Systems for Space Applications

Recently, we have been actively looking into ultra-compact instruments to fly on small satellite platforms. These satellites can only accommodate low-power, low-mass, yet highly capable scientific payloads. Increasingly, these platforms are being used to enable advancing proof of concept instruments to higher technology readiness level (TRL) by flying them in relevant environment and allow to have multiple targeted flights with scientific data returns.

Developing ultra-compact scientific payloads for these novel platforms poses a host of challenges. First, the instrument needs to be highly compact due to the lack of available space. Second, it must be ultra-low power due to the severe restrictions on DC power availability. And finally, one must be innovative in the design of antennas as traditional high gain reflector antennas (for scientific payload as well as for data communication) are not practical. Design and development of large aperture deployable antennas and other innovative structures are gaining a lot of attention in this regard.

We have been developing high resolution spectrometers, radiometers, and radars at millimeter-wave and terahertz frequencies on ultra-small platforms for astrophysics, planetary science, and Earth science applications. We are also developing millimeter-wave communications systems on to provide communication link during entry-descent-landing (EDL) phase of Mars and other planetary missions. In this presentation, we will present an overview of the state of the instrumentation development for these platforms and the design and implementation challenges. Innovative packaging solutions, novel antenna technology, and low-power backend solutions will also be presented.

The research described herein was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, under contract with National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Prof. Wenquan Che, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Millimeter-Waves and Terahertz, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

Dr. Wenquan Che received the PhD degree from the City University of Hong Kong (CITYU), Hong Kong, China, in 2003. In 2002, she was a visiting scholar with the Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada. From 2007 to 2008, she conducted academic research with the Institute of High Frequency Technology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. She had been with NUST as one lecturer, associate professor and professor since 1995. Since Nov. 2018, she joined South China University of Technology as one full professor. She has authored or coauthored over 300 internationally referred journal papers and over 100 international conference papers. Her current research interests include microwave and millimeter-wave circuits and systems, antenna technologies etc.

Dr. Che was promoted to IEEE Fellow in 2021, had has been an Elected Member of the IEEE MTT-S AdCom (2018-2026). She was a recipient of the 2007 Humboldt Research Fellowship presented by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, the 5th China Young Female Scientists Award in 2008, and also the Distinguished Young Scientist awarded by the National Natural Science Foundation Committee of China in 2012. She is now the Editor-in-Chief of Microwave and Optical Technology Letters (2019-2022), and reviewer for several IEEE Transactions and journals.

Filtering Antenna Techniques for 5G/B5G Wireless Communication Applications

In 5G and beyond 5G era, due to the long-term coexistence of different communication systems, antennas with more frequency bands on each base-station are required. These antennas suffer from strong couplings across different frequency bands, resulting in radiation performance deterioration. The filtering antennas not only efficiently integrates the antenna and filter into one module to achieve miniaturized size and lower loss, but also exhibits transparent feature for very low scatterings at other frequencies. In this way, the filtering antenna techniques have become a promising solution to alleviate cross-band interferences. Meanwhile, the transparent feature can be applied to construct multi-band aperture-shared antenna arrays and alleviate strong couplings across different frequency bands, ensuring multi-band radiation performance in base stations. In this talk, some recent researches of filtering/transparent methods and their applications in sub-6GHz and millimeter-wave antennas in our group will be presented, which is expected to provide a good solution for base-station antennas in wireless communication.

Prof. Ariel Epstein, Andrew and Erna Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

Ariel Epstein received the B.A. degree in computer science from the Open University of Israel, Ra’anana, Israel, in 2000, the B.A. degree in physics and the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the same institution in 2013. From 2013 to 2016, he was a Lyon Sachs Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where he has been leading the Modern Electromagnetic Theory and Applications (META) Research Group. His current research interests include utilization of electromagnetic theory, with an emphasis on analytical techniques, for the development of novel metasurface- and metagrating-based antenna and microwave devices, and investigation of new physical effects. Dr. Epstein was a recipient of the Young Scientist Best Paper Award in the URSI Commission B International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory (EMTS2013), held in Hiroshima, Japan, in May 2013. In 2020, he was chosen by the American Physical Society to be listed as an APS Outstanding Referee of the Physical Review journal family (lifetime award). From 2018 to 2021, he has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, where he is currently acting as a Track Editor.

Versatile metagratings for diverse field manipulation

Metagratings have established themselves in recent years as an appealing alternative platform to realize effective wavefront manipulating devices. In contrast to conventional metasurfaces, this class of complex media is characterized by sparse distributions of subwavelength scatterers (meta-atoms), thus avoiding classical top-down homogenization-based methods for its design. Instead, reliable bottom-up (semi)analytical models capturing the entire near- and far- field interactions between the meta-atoms and the excitation are utilized, allowing detailed resolution of the complete metagrating layout, up to the individual scatterer geometries. This leads to highly efficient fabrication-ready designs, inherently harnessing non-local effects to reduce element density and enhance the device performance. In this talk, I will review the fundamental concepts and theoretical framework underlying metagrating synthesis and analysis, and demonstrate their utilization in a variety of applications. In particular, paths to effectively manipulate scattered, guided, radiated, and absorbed fields will be presented, with applications in imaging, waveguide, antenna, and radar-cross-section reduction systems. Focus will be given to recent advancements in the field, enabling dual-polarized and polarization converting metagratings, as well as multifunctional operation.

Dr. Brian E. Fischer, Resonant Sciences, Dayton, Ohio, USA

Dr. Brian E. Fischer is a Chief Engineer at Resonant Sciences in Dayton Ohio. His research interests have focused on the development of electromagnetic optimization methods, signal processing, measurements, predictions and associated uncertainty. Applications are in areas of synthetic aperture radar, antenna direction finding, and near-field measurements supporting a variety of US Government sponsors. His current technical focus is in the areas of high-speed electronic sensing and signal exploitation using adaptive antenna methods and generalized near-field RCS transformation.

Dr. Fischer is a Distinguished Achievement Award recipient and Fellow of the Antenna Measurement Techniques Association (AMTA), and served as AMTA President in 2012. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and served as Associate Editor for the Measurements Corner in the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Magazine from 2007-2019. He is a retired US Air Force officer.

Dr. Fischer received the BSEE from Michigan Technological University in 1988, the MSEE from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1992, and the PhD in Signal Processing from the University of Michigan in 2005.

How Compressive Sensing Approaches Can Enhance RF Hardware Capability

For over two decades now, the area of basis pursuit and compressive sensing has increasingly found its way into common use as a means for improving radio frequency measurement diagnostics. The potential of these methods extends far beyond simply allowing for diagnostics with less data, but also allows for enhanced decomposition of underlying physics and improved measurement modeling in underdetermined systems. With this in mind, since solutions are found using the forward model of the measurement system, still more advantages exist. Many inverse models require a particular collection geometry or may be restrictive as to the probe characteristics for accurate near-field to far-field transformation. This can sometimes lead to RF hardware solutions which are cumbersome or expensive in terms of cost or time. Many papers have been written which are directed at providing ways to relax some of these constraints, but are still often focused on accurate inversion.

This talk will outline some of the ways that the use of forward models and a compressive sensing context can relax measurement requirements and hardware expense as well as improve the capability of current hardware. Measurement geometry and sampling as well as probe modeling for near-field antenna measurements will be used to illustrate key points.

Prof. V Fusco CBE, FREng, FRS, MRIA, FIAE, FIEEE, FIET, CEng, Queens University of Belfast, N Ireland, UK

Vincent Fusco specialises in microwave through sub-millimetre front-end circuit architectures. He has made numerous contributions to this field and holds 12 patents on self-tracking antennas and high performance frequency selective surfaces. He has published over 650 peer reviewed research papers and 2 books.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the IEEE, and the Irish Academy of Engineering as well as the Institution of Engineering Technology (IET) and is a Chartered Engineer. He was awarded a CBE in 2023 for his services to Engineering and Science.

In 2012 he was awarded the IET Senior Achievement Award the Mountbatten Medal and in 2019 The Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal for Engineering Sciences.

Self-Phasing Antenna Array Technology for Real World Wireless

As new applications for wireless technology come on-line additional demands are placed on technical solutions that can beamform wireless signals at microwave through millimetre wavelengths. Solutions involving phased array technology are advanced but can be power hungry, expensive to implement, and subject to difficult calibration regimes. This paper describes some relatively recent advances at Queens University of Belfast that examine the feasibility of taking self-phasing (Retrodirective) antenna arrays from the academic laboratory into real world applications. This class of antenna array can be made to perform beamforming at near real time with significantly reduced power consumption and relaxed calibration overhead in respect to the beamforming electronics required for operation. The systems developed can automatically beamform, onto and, track a moving pilot signal as well as scavenge multipath. These attributes make it viable for many use cases, several of which will be discussed here. Included will be self-phasing antenna array principles, steering electronics design requirements, and performance characterization. Use cases for L-band, Ka/Ku Band Satcoms, Wireless Power Transfer, and Satellite Launcher Telemetry will be discussed.

Prof. Anthony Grbic, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, USA

Anthony Grbic is the John L. Tishman Professor of Engineering, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He received the B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto. Prof. Grbic pursues theoretical and experimental research in applied electromagnetics. His research interests include engineered electromagnetic structures, antennas, microwave circuits, time varying and space-time varying electromagnetic systems, cylindrical vector beams, wireless power transmission, and analytical electromagnetics/optics. Prof. Grbic is a Fellow of the IEEE and is currently an IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Distinguished Microwave Lecturer. For his contributions to the theory and development of metamaterials, he has received several scientific awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in the US, an Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, and a Booker Fellowship from the United States National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science.

Perfectly-Matched Metamaterials

The talk will describe perfectly-matched metamaterials (PMMs). These are anisotropic, inhomogeneous metamaterials (subwavelength-structured materials) whose constitutive unit cells provide local control over phase progression and power flow, while possessing the unique property of being impedance matched to each other, as well as to the surrounding space. As a result, the metamaterial’s performance does not rely on inter-cell or bulk reflections to perform a prescribed electromagnetic function. Instead, PMMs rely on refractive effects and path length, and therefore promise true time-delay performance and broadband operation. They can be thought of as the lossless counterpart of perfectly-matched layers (PMLs). Dissipative PMLs, that are used to terminate computational domains in numerical electromagnetics solvers, absorb/attenuate incoming waves from arbitrary excitations without reflection. Lossless PMMs also exhibit zero reflection, but in contrast to PMLs perform non-dissipative field transformations.

In the presentation, the relations governing perfectly-matched metamaterials as well as their constitutive relations will be reviewed. In addition, analytical and inverse-design techniques will be applied to develop electromagnetic devices using PMMs. It will be shown that PMMs and their inverse design provide a route to extending the performance of transformation optics devices to multiple sets of inputs and outputs. Perfectly-matched metamaterials may find applications in scattering control, as well as the design of beamformers, MIMO antennas, intelligent surfaces, and computational metamaterials.

Dr. Pekka Kyösti, Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu, Finland

Pekka Kyösti received the M.Sc. degree in mathematics and the D.Sc. (Hons.) in communications engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland, in 2000 and 2018, respectively. He is currently a research director in 6G Flagship programme and a docent (adjunct professor) with the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu, and a senior specialist with Keysight Technologies Finland Oy. His present activities are radio channel characterization for 6G systems, and channel modelling and over-the-air emulation for 5G systems. From 1998 to 2002, he was with Nokia Networks, from 2002 to 2016, he was with Elektrobit/Anite, from 2016 onward he has been with Keysight (part time). Since 2002, he has been involved in radio channel measurements, estimation, and modelling. From 2008 onward he has been actively developing methods for MIMO over-the-air testing. He has acted in contributor and task leader roles in many past research projects such as, e.g., WINNER (I,II,+), METIS, Hexa-X, and Hexa-X-II. He has also contributed to channel modelling on many standardization fora such as ITU-R, 3GPP (RAN1, RAN4), CTIA, and IEEE 802.

Measurement Techniques for mmW and THz Propagation Channel Characterization

Collecting data by propagation measurements is an essential component of radio channel characterization. This is done, e.g., for understanding individual wave-material interactions on various materials across radio frequencies or for capturing multipath structures and related parameters in different environments. Versatile use cases also set requirements for measurements. Measurements become more challenging with increasing frequency. Dedicated wideband channel sounders with physical arrays of tens of dual polarized antenna elements at both Tx and Rx were used at sub-6 GHz frequencies to provide the channel’s time, frequency, space, and polarization domain characteristics. It was possible to keep the required phase accuracy and use omnidirectional arrays, while maintaining an adequate link budget. Now in upper mmWave and THz bands, this is not generally the case. Most measurements must be performed either with highly directive antennas using mechanical rotation, or with virtual antenna arrays since very high antenna gains are needed to compensate for the path loss. Moreover, decent phase accuracy of virtual arrays is mechanically and RF technically difficult to achieve. In this talk we discuss measurement technique options for obtaining characteristics of radio propagation. We also discuss the parameters to be measured and their use for modelling or other purposes. Different modelling needs require knowledge of different parameters, and investigation of different dimensions of radio channel require different capabilities from the measurement system.

Dr. Hervé Legay, Head of Antenna, RF and System R&T Activities, Thales Alenia Space, Toulouse, France

Hervé Legay received the Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the National Institute of Applied Sciences, Rennes, France, in 1988 and 1991, respectively. Then, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. In 1994, he joined Alcatel Space (now Thales Alenia Space), Toulouse, France. He initially conducted studies in areas of military telecommunication satellite antennas and antenna processing. He designed the architecture and the anti-jamming process of the first French space active antenna (Syracuse 3 Program). He is currently the Head of Antenna, RF and System R&T Activities, coordinating Research activities on Advanced Antennas Concepts, innovative flexible payloads, and associated system engineering. He is the Chair of the Group of Antenna Experts at Thales Group. He is also managing the strategic academic partnerships for Thales Alenia Space, in charge of the implementation of an open innovation policy with academic and research partners. He has authored 46 patents. He conducted major developments on reflectarrays, full metal radio frequency (RF) metasurfaces, integrated and low-profile antennas, and multiple beam quasi-optical beamformers. His research interests include innovative active antenna architectures and system activities related to the monitoring of active antennas.

Hybrid Hardware and Digital Processing for energy efficient space phased arrays

The space telecommunication ecosystem has recently been disrupted, with the emergence of LEO and MEO mega-constellations, the perspective of integration of non-terrestrial with terrestrial networks, and the mutation of GEO systems from broadcasting missions to High Throughput Satellite (HTS) missions. All these systems are conceived with multibeam coverage and frequency reuse for the user links, and seamless flexibility that permits to balance capacity from an area to another. Digitally controlled phased arrays is an obvious candidate for these needs. Phased arrays provide flexibility in the spatial allocation of the power resource, and digital processing permits to implement algorithmic techniques for maximizing the gain and reducing co-channel interferences. Payloads are however heavily constrained by power consumption, which limits the size of the antenna, and consequently the gain and the reuse factor for the allocation of the resource. Power sober payloads are then desired, as well as drastic reduction in cost volume/mass. In this context, three research paths carried out in an open innovation framework with academic partners will be presented :

The advent of new manufacturing processes permits to conceive radiators with higher efficiency, wider scanning range, and with reduced mass and cost.
Associating digital and hardware implementations of beamforming permits to maximize the system capacity to power consumption ratio. It can be performed with novel phased array architectures based on Quasi-Optical radiators, or Quasi-Optical Beamformers. Active Hybrid Beamforming, mixing analog and digital beamformers is another approach.
Beam monitoring and resource allocations technique are essential for maximizing the throughput while guaranteeing flexibility for payloads based on phased arrays. The complexity of conventional Radio Resource Management techniques increases exponentially with the number of beams and users. Alternative smart and heuristic processing solutions are developed that runs extremely fast while approaching the optimal capacity.

N. Llombart, TU Delft, The Netherlands

Nuria Llombart received the Master’s degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. From 2002 to 2007, she was with the Antenna Group, TNO Defense, Security and Safety Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands. From 2007 to 2010, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the California Institute of Technology, working with the Submillimeter Wave Advance Technology Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA. She was a “Ramón y Cajal” fellow in the Optics Department, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, from 2010 to 2012. In September 2012, she joined the THz Sensing Group, Technical University of Delft, Delft, the Netherlands, where she is a Full Professor as of February 2018.

Dr. Llombart was a recipient H. A. Wheeler Award for the Best Applications Paper of 2008 in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, the 2014 THz Science and Technology Best Paper Award of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, the 2014 IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society Lot Shafai Mid-Career Distinguished Achievement Award, the European Research Council Starting Grant in 2015, and several NASA awards. She serves as a Board Member for the IRMMW-THz International Society; and she is the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on THz Science and Technology since 2023.

Quasi-Optical Antenna Systems for THz Communications and Sensing

THz waves are sandwiched between micro and optical waves with frequencies in the order from 100 GHz up to 10 THz. In this part of the spectrum, the technology is not as mature as in optics or microwaves. Electronics have their cut-off frequencies in the THz region while waves are not very energetic at these frequencies. Therefore there is very little power to work with, every single dB counts! So if there is not mature technology and little power to work with, why we should even bother to look into this part of the spectrum? Traditionally, the main interest to develop THz systems has been space science. Because of the advancement in technology, and the need for bandwidth, the world-wide industry is looking now to higher frequencies. The larger available bandwidth at these higher frequencies will enable much faster wireless links, indeed 5G is already exploiting mm-wavelengths, and this trend will continue with 6G. Radars operating at few hundreds GHz are being used to detect objects with high resolution for multiple industrial applications.

The problem of limited power in this spectral band and can be overcome via the use of Quasi-Optical (QO) systems. In this talk, I will present an overview of our recent activities in this area: from the application of electromagnetic high-frequency models to the development of state-of-the-art QO antennas with the objective of demonstrating proof of concept systems with unique capabilities for future XG sensing and communications applications.

Prof. Paolo Rocca, ELEDIA Research Center, University of Trento, Italy

Paolo Rocca (IEEE Fellow, 2023) received the MS degree in Telecommunications Engineering (summa cum laude) in 2005 and the PhD Degree in Information and Communication Technologies in 2008 from the University of Trento, Italy. Since 2015, he is Associate Professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (University of Trento) and a member of the ELEDIA Research Center. Moreover, he is Huashan Scholar Chair Professor at the Xidian University (Xi'an, China), Adjunct Professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (Chengdu, China), and Member of the Big Data and AI Working Group for the Committee on Engineering for Innovative Technologies (CEIT) of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO). Since 2023, Prof. Rocca is the Director of the SEME@Trentino (Smart EM Environment in Trentino) laboratory, a joint initiative between the University of Trento and the Bruno Kessler Foundation. Prof. Rocca received the National Scientific Qualification for the position of Full Professor in Italy and France in April 2017 and January 2020, respectively. He has been awarded from the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and the Italy Section with the best PhD thesis award IEEE-GRS Central Italy Chapter. His main interests are in the framework of the analysis and design of antennas and unconventional antenna arrays, electromagnetic inverse scattering, and methodologies for EM inversion and advanced EM design with a focus on artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Prof. Rocca has co-authored 5 book chapters and more than 470 scientific publications among which more than 170 on international journals. He is/has been the PI of several technological projects (>20) with national,EU, and international agencies as well as leading industrial partners in the area of ICT.

Crafting the Future of Smart EM Environments Through the System-by-Design - The SEME@Trentino Initiative

The Smart Electromagnetic Environment (SEME) is a revolutionizing concept envisioning the future of wireless connectivity for next-generation/6G mobile systems and applications. It is based on the idea that the objects in the environment are not considered, like in the past, as impairments to the propagation of the electromagnetic (EM) signals but they are key enablers. The environment becomes the fundamental and necessary degree-of-freedom for tailoring the propagation of the EM waves and enhancing the coverage, the data throughput, the quality of service, and thus the users experience toward the implementation of the Metaverse. The SEME implementation will unavoidably require the development and use of novel hardware and software technology and their smart integration into practical solutions. In this framework, there is nowadays a wide research interest towards reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) and static passive EM skins (SP-EMS) to be installed or integrated in the walls of building and/or along the streets for improving the propagation of the EM waves in complex urban scenarios. The design, optimization, and planning of such hybrid and complex wireless networks and of the technology therein will not be possible without the use of innovative methods such as the System-by-Design (SbD). In this talk, the recent advances carried out within the SEME@Trentino initiative on the use of the SbD for developing novel SEME technology and solutions will be presented and future trends envisaged.

Luis Rolo, HERTZ 2.0 Antenna and Payload Laboratory, ESTEC, ESA, The Netherlands

Luis Rolo graduated in Electrical Engineering in 2006 in the University of Porto, Portugal, specialized in Telecommunications and Electromagnetics and has been involved in space antennas for 20 years. His first antenna design flew on the YES2 satellite in 2007. He joined ESA in the Antenna and Sub-Millimeter Wave Section in 2006, where he provided engineering and R&D support related with antenna design, integration and testing to many ESA missions in all phases of development, such as PLANCK, ALPHASAT, SENTINEL-3, SOLAR ORBITER, BIOMASS, MTG, Galileo and JUICE.

For 8 years he was the coordinator of the Antenna Laboratory at ESTEC - a laboratory with multiple test facilities that provide highly specialized antenna testing services to ESA projects and European Industrial partners, covering radiated application between a few MHz up to 5 THz.

Currently he is in the Radio Frequency Payloads & Technology Division, managing the implementation of HERTZ 2.0 – a new state-of-the-art antenna, RF and Payload testing facility that aims at bringing non-existing testing capabilities and end-to-end performance testing to the space antenna and RF payload communities.

Spaceborne antenna testing: Status, Perspectives and Challenges

This presentation provides an overview of the current space antenna testing landscape from an ESA perspective, looking at different space application domains. Particular emphasis will be given on the future needs and challenges, with reports on the associated research, technology and facility/infrastructure developments being undertaken to push the state-of-the-art and enable new antenna testing capabilities.

Carol Wilson, CSIRO Space & Astronomy, Australia

Carol Wilson received a Bachelor of Science in 1983 and a Master of Science in 1985, both in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech (USA). From 1985 to 1990 she taught at Virginia Tech and Midlands Technical College (South Carolina), covering a wide range of engineering and mathematics courses. In 1990 she moved to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Sydney, Australia. Through 2007, she was employed in the radiocommunications business unit as a Research Consultant on radiowave propagation, leading projects in the development of short-range systems and managing industrial contracts on GSM networks, antenna shielding, wireless backhaul, LMDS, digital broadcasting coverage, television interference and satellite interference analysis. In addition, she provided advice on spectrum usage and regulatory issues for research partners and external customers. In 2008 she transferred to the Space & Astronomy business unit, where she led the work on interference analysis and spectrum management in support of the protection of radioastronomy facilities. This includes both detailed propagation analyses and negotiation with stakeholders and the regulator on legislation for radio quiet protection.

Carol has been a participant in Study Group 3 – Radiowave Propagation – of the Radiocommunication sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R) since 1991. From 2002 – 2015, she was Chairman of Working Party 3M which develops propagation advice for fixed links, satellite services, and for the evaluation of interference between services. From 2015 – 2023, Carol was Chairman of Study Group 3, overseeing the work of approximately 150 experts in developing and maintaining propagation prediction methods for all radio services. In November 2023, Carol was the first woman to chair the ITU-R Radiocommunication Assembly, the peak management meeting of the Radio Sector, for which she was awarded an ITU Silver Medal.

Radiowave Propagation Development in the ITU-R

The core responsibility of the ITU-R is the global management of the radiofrequency spectrum as well as geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits. Every four years, the World Radiocommunication Conference considers changes to the Radiocommunication Regulations, a treaty-level document governing spectrum use from 8.3 kHz to 275 GHz. In preparation for such changes to spectrum allocations, the ITU-R Study Groups conduct studies to evaluate the impact of new services on existing allocations. An essential component is the prediction of propagation from transmitters of one service, for example, mobile base stations, to the receivers of another service, for example, aeronautical or earth stations. Study Group 3 is tasked with providing impartial advice, through the development of Recommendations, for predicting interference for all services over this entire frequency range. The Study Group 3 Recommendations address the full range of propagation effects for fixed, mobile, satellite, and aeronautical geometries. While developed primarily for interference analysis, the Recommendations are also widely used in industry for system design and coverage prediction. Study Group 3 meets regularly to improve and expand these Recommendations, and welcomes the participation of new delegates with relevant expertise.