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Congratulations, Jesse Jiang, for Placing in the SRC Undergraduate Research Poster Competition

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Two ORS undergraduate researchers have won 1st and 3rd place student research presentation awards as part of the TECHCON 2019 conference held in Austin, TX last week.  Daniel Yang won 1st place for presenting his research poster on Printable RF Circuits as part of the Tentzeris ORS group, led by PhD student Aline Eid. Jesse Jiang won 3rd place for presenting his research poster on 24 GHz RFID Tags as part of the Durgin ORS group, led by PhD student Mohammad Alhassoun.

Georgia Tech sent 7 undergraduates to present at TECHCON, which draws top researchers, scientists, and a large field of students from across the United States to present cutting-edge research in the field of semiconductor electronics.

Journal Article on the Reader Used in RFTsat

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Low-Power and Compact Frequency Hopping RFID Reader at 5.8 GHz for Sensing Applications in Space
Cheng Qi ; Robert W. Corless ; Joshua D. Griffin ; Gregory D. Durgin
IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification
Year: 2019 | Volume: 3, Issue: 3

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is the driving technology behind many compelling applications, such as Internet-of-Things, smart cities, and inventory tracking. However, it is always challenging to make a small, low-cost transceiver with little power consumption. This paper presents the design and characterization of a low-power, compact frequency hopping RFID reader that has great potential for use in space-based sensing applications including structural health monitoring, tracking inventory, and sensitive field measurements. This RFID reader will be launched into low-earth orbit aboard the radio frequency tag satellite (RFTSat), a nanosatellite developed at Northwest Nazarene University, and serves as a demonstration of backscatter communications in space. This reader is capable of operating in the 5725–5850 MHz frequency industrial scientific medical band with up to 31 dBm equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) and −58 dBm to −82 dBm sensitivity in different conditions.

Backer’s MS Thesis Available Online

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Holographic Transmit Reflect-Array at 5.8 GHz for Wireless Power Transfer in the Fresnel Zone

MS Thesis by Emily Backer

This thesis presents the design and simulation of four square holographic reflectarrays consisting of circular patches for wireless power transfer (WPT) in the Fresnel region. The design includes the calculation of the phase reflection response from different variations of patches and substrate sizes, the calculation of the phase front needed to form a focal point, the simulation of a reference wave, the design of the hologram, and the simulation of the final holographic system. The first set of arrays use FR4 substrate and are made up of 4096, 2304, and 576 number of patch segments arranged in a rectilinear grid, and the last array uses a Rogers substrate and is made up of 4096 patches. These 1.216-meter FR4, 0.912-meter FR4, 0.456-meter FR4, and 1.216-meter Rogers holographic reflectarrays successfully collimate the incoming power into beams at 10-meter, 5-meter, 3-meter, and 10-meter focal points respectively.

Finishing up at the ISS

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The CubeSat slingshot dispenser holding RFTSat will be installed on the Cygnus hatch today, while docked at the International Space Station.  Cygnus will then undock from the ISS Tuesday (tomorrow) at noon EDT, which will be live-streamed on NASA TV.  The CubeSats will deploy at the first signals from RFTSat will send on-orbit data sometime Wednesday afternoon.