Tomislav Markovic
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Lately, we’ve often heard about the “walking lunch.” A few people or a small group of people who take their lunch and combine it with a relaxing, short walk. Younger generations like Millennials, Generation Z, or our IEEE
Young Professionals sometimes take their lunch in front of their smartphones while watching a sitcom or a lecture. But we can all ask ourselves whether it would not be better to see the same lecture live rather than on a small smartphone. That’s exactly what a technical lecture at the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society International Microwave Symposium (IMS) can give you: an educational story that is an easy introduction to IMS technical sessions while you eat your lunch. It’s fair to say that you attend the IMS for business and pleasure.
The technical lectures have been a part of the IMS since 2020. They impart knowledge to attendees through comprehensive educational content focused on a set of defined learning objectives. What makes a technical lecture special is its educational value for engineers, scientists and technicians who may not be as familiar with the subject matter. The lecturer assumes that the participants will learn the fundamentals and more without already being familiar with the subject matter. Each technical lecture lasts 80 min, including time for Q&A with the speaker.
Last year at IMS2022, we gave two technical lectures: “Electromagnetic Fundamentals Underlying Health Impact of Millimeter Wave Radiations” and “Semiconductor Electronics for High Power/High Speed Reconfigurable RF and Microwave Electronics” (see Figure 1).
This year at IMS2023, we will offer three technical lectures on each day of the IMS:
There is growing interest in the potential of digital engineering and, more specifically, model-based systems engineering and digital twins (DTs) to shorten product development lifecycles and reduce costs. A primary benefit of such an approach is a shift left, such that many end-to-end system-level performance, interoperability, and security issues may be investigated earlier in the product development lifecycle than is typically the case using the traditional V-based design model.
DTs leverage high-fidelity software models of physical systems to support the design, test, and lifecycle management of complex systems in an efficient and comprehensive manner. A DT uses simulation and emulation but differs from them in that the DT continuously learns and updates itself from multiple sources to represent the near-real-time status and operating conditions of the corresponding real-world system. A network DT (NDT) is the DT of a communications network that uses real-time data to enable understanding, learning, and reasoning across its lifecycle.
We use integrated DTs (IDTs) to describe a DT that consists of the following three primary layers:
In this technical lecture, the concept and primary components of an IDT are presented. Also demonstrated is the application of an IDT to design complex systems, using a 5G nonterrestrial network (NTN) as an example case study. NTN design and architectures are being standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project as an integral part of the 5G infrastructure. Broadly speaking, an NTN refers to a 5G network that includes a segment spanning nonterrestrial objects (e.g., high-altitude platforms and satellites), which may optionally host a base station. The various attributes of NTNs, like long communication delays, ground-air/space propagation links, and handoff among space-based platforms, make them an interesting case study for an IDT. Using this case study, both an overall methodology for how the IDT can be applied to look at the end-to-end performance of an NTN from the purview of applications like streaming videos, and a description of the composability of models from the RF, network, and service domains will be presented. The case study will also illustrate how IDTs can support the shift-left approach to early investigations of end-to-end system-level performance, interoperability, and security issues.
Figure 1. A room packed with attendees at a technical lecture at IMS2022 in Denver, Colorado.
Spaceborne RF high power amplifiers (HPAs) are key building blocks used in telecommunication, navigation, remote sensing, science, and human spaceflight applications. Due to their limited efficiency, they often play a central role in the electrical, thermal, and mechanical design of complete instrument and payloads on board the spacecraft.
The aim of this technical lecture is to provide, through a real-case scenario, a comprehensive insight of solid-state power amplifiers including key semiconductor technologies and tradeoffs, basic principles of HPA operating modes, traditional architectures used in space systems, step-by-step design and integration aspects, and validation activities as well as development challenges brought by the different application domains.
The technical lecture aims to be an entertaining and interactive forum where participants will have the opportunity to exchange insights throughout the lecture.
This lecture will enable audience members to design and analyze modern portable radar systems for health care and Internet of Things applications. It will develop an understanding of the fundamentals of smart radar systems. The audience will be exposed to various radar systems, including Doppler, ultrawideband, frequency-shift keying, and frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW). Furthermore, the audience will be shown the fundamentals of synthetic aperture radar, inverse synthetic aperture radar, and pulse-compression radar. A few examples based on interferometry, Doppler, and FMCW modes at 5.8, 24, and 120 GHz, respectively, will be discussed. Then, the mechanism and applications of nonlinear radar-sensing technologies will be illustrated. Case studies at this exciting human-microwave frontier will be given on physiological signal sensing, noncontact human–computer interface, driving behavior recognition, human tracking, and anomaly detection.
All attendees, exhibitors, and visitors are invited to gain knowledge and experience from an inspiring and diligent educator over a one-time luncheon for a small, token fee. For questions about the technical lectures at IMS2023, please contact Asst. Prof. Tomislav Markovic at tomislav.markovic@fer.hr.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3242851Date