The Propagation Group

Georgia Tech ECE Research Group

Home of the Georgia Tech Propagation Group

News and Resources for the Durgin Research Group

Silva MS Thesis on Transparent Antennas and RF

Posted on Written by

Optically Transparent Antennas for Multi-modal Sensing

MS Thesis by Zachary J. Silva, May 2019

The advent of multi-modal data fusion, the rise of CubeSats, and the dawn of the drone, among others, have all put pressure on sensor developers to increase payload performance while decreasing their size, weight, and power (SWAP). RF-EO/IR fusion enables enhanced situational awareness due to the changes in material properties at different electromagnetic frequencies. The research explores high performance optically transparent conductors realized as antennas used for single aperture RF-EO/IR sensor fusion.

Congratulations, Fanpeng!

Posted on Written by


Congratulations to Fanpeng Kong, who successfully defended his PhD dissertation on Monday, 10 March 2020. The work, entitled “Development and Evaluation of An Intraoral Tongue Operated Assistive Technology for People with Quadriparesis,” generated a new way to bring mobility to quadriplegic people and a prolific number of technical publications. Sorry folks, but Fanpeng already has a job accepted in the San Diego area.

Backscatter Fading, From Worst to Best

Posted on Written by

A Theoretical Channel Model for Spatial Fading in Retrodirective Backscatter Channels

Mohammad Alhassoun ; Gregory D. Durgin

IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Year: 2019 | Early Access Article | Publisher: IEEE

Abstract: The round-trip nature of backscatter communications subjects the radio link to unusually severe small-scale fading. Over fading channels, the received signal envelope in backscatter-based systems such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems fades worse than a standard one-way communication. In this paper, we study spatial fading of the received signal envelope in an important class of backscatter systems using retrodirective transponders that allow microwave and mm-wave communications at extraordinarily low-power consumption by an RF tag. Our comparative study shows that the use of retrodirective RF tags changes the backscatter channel statistics from being doubly faded to singly faded, resembling a conventional, one-way radio channel. Surprisingly, fading in retrodirective backscatter channels is highly varied and sensitive to the fine structure of the diffuse multipath waves in the radio environment in ways that fading in conventional radio links are not.