Microwave Seminar on Leaky-Wave Antennas

Date & Time: Nov. 10, Thursday: 14:00-15:00.

Location: Seminar Room DB315 in Edinburgh campus.

Speaker: Miguel Poveda-Garcia, from Spain, studied at Technical University of Cartagena (UPCT), where he received the BEng, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Telecommunications Engineering. So far, Miguel has focused his research on leaky-wave antennas and their applications, topic that has gained a lot of interest lately. During his predoctoral period, Miguel made two international stays in Rennes (France) and Aveiro (Portugal). Besides, he has visited Heriot-Watt University before, in 2017 and 2018, as part of two collaborations in different projects. Currently, Miguel is in the Microwaves and Antenna Engineering Group as a Visiting Scholar, funded by his home university, with the aim of creating new research lines where both universities (HWU and UPCT) can work together in the near future.

Talk summary: Leaky-Wave Antennas (LWA) have been widely studied in the past due to their particular characteristics, such as high directivity with simple feeding and frequency-scanning of the directive beams. Despite this, their use in real systems apart from FMCW Radars is still quite limited, so they are not found in many practical scenarios yet. However, in recent years, due to the growth of next generation networks, new applications are arising with requirements and characteristics, from the antenna design perspective, that can be achieved with LWAs. Advantages such as low cost and integrability are some of the strengths that make LWAs interesting and a good candidate to substitute other solutions based in more complex structures (phased arrays, parabolic reflectors, etc…). This seminar will deal with the applicability and future of LWAs, going from the basic theory to particular designs.