In today’s modern communication systems, wireless devices such as smart phone and tablet are required to support multiple wireless standards like GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LTE. However, all these standards necessitate separate circuitries and antennas, hence increasing the final product's size. To solve this problem, reconfigurable and tunable components based on MEMS technology are seen as a potential solution to improve the overall system performance and minimize the overall size of the device.
The aim of this project is to design tunable wireless front end components using microelectromechanical (MEMS) technology such as MEMS variable capacitor and Distributed MEMS Transmission Line (DMTL) phase shifter. These components are vital in realizing smart antenna technology which could be applied to various applications ranging from commercial telecommunication to medical practice. The research would lead to improved performance of wireless devices such as smartphones and radar by reducing their power consumption through beam steering techniques.
The key objectives of the research include:
- To design, simulate and fabricate RF MEMS digital variable capacitor
- To design Distributed MEMS Transmission Line (DMTL) phase shifter for low frequency range applications
- To investigate the use of polymer materials such as SU8 as passivation layer for realising low -oss co-planar transmission line
