Applied electromagnetics
Focus
The group masters most of the aspects related to Applied Electromagnetics and owns an international leading role in its exploitation, from microwave to optical frequencies. As far as propagation research is concerned, the group focuses on millimeter and optical wave propagation in the atmosphere, carrying out satellite propagation experiments, developing models and fade mitigation techniques to be used in advanced telecommunication systems and science missions as well as in Earth observation and remote sensing systems.
Activities on RF devices deal with the radio front-end, including microwave circuits (filters and combiners) and antennas (reconfigurable and/or metamaterial-based). Photonics activities push the progress of passive and nonlinear integrated optical devices for high bit rates optical communication, interconnects and sensing, exploiting and promoting the emerging new foundry models for integrated optics.
Activities on RF devices deal with the radio front-end, including microwave circuits (filters and combiners) and antennas (reconfigurable and/or metamaterial-based). Photonics activities push the progress of passive and nonlinear integrated optical devices for high bit rates optical communication, interconnects and sensing, exploiting and promoting the emerging new foundry models for integrated optics.
Most relevant research achievements
Design of satellite-based telecommunication and broadcasting systems using a reconfigurable antenna
In the frame of 2 ESA Contracts (17877 and 22216) a preliminary design has been drawn for an advanced satellite-based system (TLC and broadcasting) at Ka and Q/V bands, which uses the adaptive distribution of the radiated power flux over the covering European area service to optimally counteract, almost real time, the tropospheric attenuation.
Prediction models for propagation applications in satellite communication systems
The ITU-R Recommendations P.618-9 (2007), P.837-6 (2012) and P.1623 (2003) include four models (performance assessment of the site diversity communication systems, prediction of rainfall rate statistics for propagation oriented applications, scaling of rainfall rate statistics with different integration time and prediction of fade duration statistics) developed by Applied Electromagnetic group at Politecnico di Milano (one of which under an ESA contract).
Advanced antenna systems
The most relevant products include:
1) a new class of reconfigurable metamaterial antennas for MIMO systems and their specific configuration selection algorithm (the EU and US patents are exploited by the spin-off company Adant);
2) a perturbative method for the analysis of coupling among horns in clusters, allowing to compute the NxN scattering matrix of coupled horn by a scattering series with greatly enhanced computation speed.
Synthesis techniques for microwave filters and multiplexers
The group holds a leading international position in the development of synthesis techniques for microwave combiners. A novel approach to the synthesis of star-junction multiplexers has been developed in 2010. Innovative techniques have been also developed for the design of lossy filters and waveguide filters presenting transmission zeros (patent pending: PCT/IT 2010 000306 – 9/7/2010). The above achievements have produced various papers published on IEEE Journals.
Optical Slow Waves
The group is recognized as one of the pioneers of the slow light concept and its exploitation in the linear and nonlinear domain by using coupled cavities. In 2008 and 2009 they realized a fully tuneable delay lines in chip up to an entire byte at 10 as well as 100 Gbit/s and in 2010 the first FWM based wavelength conversion in slow wave regime, published by Nature Communications was demonstrated.
New foundry models
The group is participating in the definition, development and promotion of the new roadmap for integrated photonic in Europe, based on the concept of generic foundry model. In the framework of two European projects (Europic and Paradigm) and a PRIN project, the group implemented the first circuit simulator for integrated optical circuits and is responsible for the implementation of the “design kits”. A start-up company (Filarete srl) has been founded to promote and commercialize the software.
In the frame of 2 ESA Contracts (17877 and 22216) a preliminary design has been drawn for an advanced satellite-based system (TLC and broadcasting) at Ka and Q/V bands, which uses the adaptive distribution of the radiated power flux over the covering European area service to optimally counteract, almost real time, the tropospheric attenuation.
Prediction models for propagation applications in satellite communication systems
The ITU-R Recommendations P.618-9 (2007), P.837-6 (2012) and P.1623 (2003) include four models (performance assessment of the site diversity communication systems, prediction of rainfall rate statistics for propagation oriented applications, scaling of rainfall rate statistics with different integration time and prediction of fade duration statistics) developed by Applied Electromagnetic group at Politecnico di Milano (one of which under an ESA contract).
Advanced antenna systems
The most relevant products include:
1) a new class of reconfigurable metamaterial antennas for MIMO systems and their specific configuration selection algorithm (the EU and US patents are exploited by the spin-off company Adant);
2) a perturbative method for the analysis of coupling among horns in clusters, allowing to compute the NxN scattering matrix of coupled horn by a scattering series with greatly enhanced computation speed.
Synthesis techniques for microwave filters and multiplexers
The group holds a leading international position in the development of synthesis techniques for microwave combiners. A novel approach to the synthesis of star-junction multiplexers has been developed in 2010. Innovative techniques have been also developed for the design of lossy filters and waveguide filters presenting transmission zeros (patent pending: PCT/IT 2010 000306 – 9/7/2010). The above achievements have produced various papers published on IEEE Journals.
Optical Slow Waves
The group is recognized as one of the pioneers of the slow light concept and its exploitation in the linear and nonlinear domain by using coupled cavities. In 2008 and 2009 they realized a fully tuneable delay lines in chip up to an entire byte at 10 as well as 100 Gbit/s and in 2010 the first FWM based wavelength conversion in slow wave regime, published by Nature Communications was demonstrated.
New foundry models
The group is participating in the definition, development and promotion of the new roadmap for integrated photonic in Europe, based on the concept of generic foundry model. In the framework of two European projects (Europic and Paradigm) and a PRIN project, the group implemented the first circuit simulator for integrated optical circuits and is responsible for the implementation of the “design kits”. A start-up company (Filarete srl) has been founded to promote and commercialize the software.