Electrical and Computer Engineering

 

RF and Microwave Design at K-State

 

Creating real-world product designs in a single semester...

Student Designed FM Radio

Our main RF and microwave hardware design courses include ECE662 and ECE764. In the senior-level ECE662 course (Design of Communication Circuits) students design/build/test and document FM broadcast receivers such as those shown above. In the ECE764 senior/graduate course offering (Microwaves and antennas), typical projects have included weather satellite receivers and CWFM radars (below). The structure of these "open laboratory" courses is documented in a paper published at the Frontiers in Education conference in 2000.

Doppler/CWFM Radar Class Project

 

 

Related YouTube Video Content

Some of the core material in ECE662 is now available on YouTube !

Click on the picture below or search for "Radio Design 101 - Youtube" on the web for the full playlist :

Radio Design 101 Videos

 

Additional playlists show how to use relatively affordable test equipment that students can purchase and use at home to design and build wireless systems, and cover antenna theory from ECE662 and ECE764. Click on the pictures below to access these videos:

 

NanoVNA and TinySA for Radio Design

 

Antenna Briefs Playlist

 

Selected Journal/Conference Publications

COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

Linked files below are provided to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders (e.g. IEEE). All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by those copyrights. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of thecopyright holder.

  1. William B Kuhn, Andrew D Fund, J Ambrose Wolf, Robert W Schwartz, James Claypool, Matthew J O’Keefe, Wayne Huebner, "Thin-Film Capacitor Technology for Improving Broadband Power Integrity," IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology, 2019

  2. Joshua Welch, William B Kuhn, "Single Sided Coplanar Waveguide", IEEE 27th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, 2018

  3. William Kuhn, Garrett Peterson, Joshua Welch, "Broadband Antenna Probe for Microwave EMC Measurements", IEEE 27th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, 2018

  4. Garrett Peterson, William Kuhn, "Coherent calibration cancellation for stepped frequency radar systems
    ", IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf18), 1594-1597, 2018

  5. John E Zumbro, H Alan Mantooth, William B Kuhn, Joshua Welch, Todd Rider, J Ambrose Wolf, "Board-level rapid-prototyping shielding for radio frequency transmission lines", IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf18), 1528-1532, 2018.

  6. William B. Kuhn and J. Ambrose Wolf, "Thin Film Capacitor Applications in RF/Microwave Circuits." International Symposium on Microelectronics: Fall 2017, Vol. 2017, No. 1, pp. 56-60.

  7. Todd Rider, William B. Kuhn, and Ambrose Wolf, "Crosstalk and EMI in Mixed-Signal / Microwave Multi-Layer PC Boards", IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal and Power Integrity, August 2017.

  8. William Kuhn, "Wireless Communication Problems in Energy-Efficient Building Construction", IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, July 2016.

  9. Chenyu Zheng, William B. Kuhn, and Balasubramaniam Natarajan, “Ultralow Power Energy Harvesting Body Area Network Design: A Case Study,” International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, September 2015.

  10. Kuhn, W.B. and Fund, A. D., "Power supply bypass capacitors—Myths and realities," Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC), pp. 405-408, January 2015.

  11. Andrew D. Fund, William B. Kuhn, J. Ambrose Wolf, Ryan J. Eatinger, Kaoru U. Porter, Michael D. Glover, and H. Alan Mantooth,"Metal Layer Losses in Thin-Film Microstrip on LTCC," IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY, V. 4, No 12, pp 1956-1962, December 2014.

  12. Mohammed Taj-Eldin, William B. Kuhn, Amelia Hodges Fowles, Bala Natarajan, Garrett Peterson, Muhannad Alshetaiwi, Shuo Ouyang, German Sanchez, and Erin Monfort-Nelson, "Study of Wireless Propagation for Body Area Networks Inside Space Suits," IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO. 11, pp. 3810 - 3818, Nov. 2014.

  13. Kuhn, William; Eatinger, Ryan; Melton, Steven, "ESD Detection Circuit and Associated Metal Fuse Investigations in CMOS Processes," IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, pp. 146-153, March, 2014.

  14. Dwight Day, Xiongjie Dong, William Kuhn, Don Gruenbacher, Balasubramaniam Natarajan, Tim Sobering, Mohammed Taj-Eldin, Steve Warren, Thomas Barstow, Ryan Broxterman, Arlie Stonestreet II, "Biomedical Sensing and Wireless Technologies for Long Duration EVAs and Precursor Scout Missions," Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana, March 1 - 8, 2014.

  15. Mohammed Taj-Eldin, William Kuhn, Balasubramaniam Natarajan, and Garrett Peterson "Investigation of Practical Antennas for Astronaut Body Area Network," 2014 IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE), pp. 1-7, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, October 30 – 31, 2014.

  16. Steven Melton, Weston Burress, Andy Fund, William Kuhn, and Andrew Rys, "Commercial Electronic Components and Silicon-on-Sapphire ICs at Extreme Cryogenic Temperatures," Poster presented at International Cryogenic Materials Conference 2014 conference, University of Twente in Enschede, Netherlands, May 2014.

  17. Taj-Eldin, Mohammed, Kuhn, William, and Natarajan, Balasubramaniam, "Study of Radio Channel for Biomedical Sensors in Spacesuits," ACM BodyNets '13, Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Body Area Networks, Pages 302-306, 2013.

  18. Amelia Hodges, Mohammed Taj-Eldin, Erin Monfort-Nelson, William B. Kuhn, and Balasubramaniam Natarajan, "Intra-Suit Wireless Link Propagation Study and Measurements: Part of Biosensor Networks and Telecommunication Subsystems for Long Duration Missions, EVA Suits, and Robotic Precursor Scout Missions NASA EPSCOR Project NNX11AM05A," NASA 2013 Human Research Program Investigators' Workshop, Feb 11-14 2013.

  19. Mohammed Taj-Eldin, Bill Kuhn, Amelia Hodges, Bala Natarajan, Garrett Peterson, Muhannad Alshetaiwi, Shuo Ouyang, German Sanchez, and Erin Monfort-Nelson, "Wireless Propagation Measurements for Astronaut Body Area Network," IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE), Baltimore MD, Nov 7-9, 2013.

  20. Chelsi Kovala and William B. Kuhn, “Characterizing Spurious Responses in Radio Receivers,” IEEE 2013 Topical Meeting on Radio and Wireless Systems (RWS).

  21. Matthew J. Clewell and William B. Kuhn, “Comparison of Silver vs. Gold Systems in High-Q FTTF LTCC Inductors,” 45th International Symposium on Microelectronics, IMAPS 2012.

  22. R. Bhandavat, W. Kuhn, E. Mansfield, J. Lehman and G. Singh1, "Synthesis of Polymer-derived Ceramic Si(B)CN-Carbon Nanotube Composite by Microwave Induced Interfacial Polarization," ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2012, 4 (1), pp 11–16.

  23. William B. Kuhn, "Loss Mechanisms and Quality Factor Improvement for Inductors in High-Resistivity SOI Processes," IEEE SiRF conference (Part of Radio and Wireless Week, previously RAWCON), January 2012.

  24. Boutz, A. P.; Kuhn, W. B., "Performance of High-Q Inductors in LTCC Using FTTF Techniques," IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology, Volume: 1 , Issue: 8, Page(s): 1125 - 1131, 2011.

  25. Anil Pahwa, William B. Kuhn, Ruth Douglas Miller, Andrew Rys, Chris Eldridge, Scott Geier, Jeff Schuler, Matt Morley, Ian Sobering, Jonathan Stacks, " Educational and Research Challenges and Opportunities Related to Renewable Energy," 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, October 12 - 15, 2011.

  26. Jack Murray, Wayne Huebner, Matthew J. O'Keefe, Kristina Wilder, Ryan Eatinger, William Kuhn, Daniel S. Krueger, J. Ambrose Wolf, "Sputter deposition of thin film MIM capacitors on LTCC substrates for RF bypass and filtering applications", IMAPS Conference, 2011.

  27. William B. Kuhn and Adam P.Boutz, "Measuring and Reporting High Quality Factors of Inductors Using Vector Network Analyzers", IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, pp. 1046 – 1055, April 2010.

  28. Jeongmin Jeon,; Kuhn, WilliamB., "A 400 to 500-MHz CMOS Power Amplifier with multi-Watt output," IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium, pp. 272 - 275, January 2009.

  29. Xiaohu Zhang; Burress, ThomasWeston; Albers, Keith B.; Kuhn, William B., "Propagation comparisons at VHF and UHF frequencies" IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium, pp. 244-247, January 2009.

  30. Adam Boutz and William B. Kuhn, "Measurement and Performance of Embedded LTCC Inductors Utilizing Full Tape Thickness Feature Conductors," IMAPS/ACerS 5th International Conference and Exhibition on Ceramic Interconnect and Ceramic Microsystems Technologies (CICMT 2009), January 2009.

  31. Tyler Van Slyke, William B.Kuhn, Balasubramaniam Natarajan, “Measuring Interference from a UWB Transmitter in the GPS L1 Band,” IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium, pp. 887-890, January 2008.

  32. Kuhn, W., Lay, N. E.,Grigorian, E.; Nobbe, D.; Kuperman, I.; Jeon, J.; Wong, K.; Tugnawat, Y.; He, X., "A Microtransceiver for UHF Proximity Links Including Mars Surface-to-Orbit Applications," Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 95, Issue 10, pp. 2019-2044, Oct 2007.

  33. J. Jeon and W.B. Kuhn, “A UHF CMOS transceiver front-end with a resonant TR switch,” IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium, 2007.

  34. Kuhn, W.; Lay, N.; Grigorian, E.; "A UHF proximity micro-transceiver for Mars exploration," 2006 IEEE Aerospace Conference, 4-11 March 2006.

  35. Tugnawat, Y. and Kuhn, W., “Low temperature performance of COTS electronic components for Martian surface applications,” IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2006, 4-11 March 2006.

  36. William B Kuhn, Balasubramaniam Natarajan and Don Gruenbacher, "Work in Progress: A Comprehensive Design Experience Based on Product Development across Multiple courses," 36th annual Frontiers in Education Conference, San Diego, California, October 28 - 31, 2006.

  37. Don Gruenbacher, Balasubramaniam Natarajan and William B Kuhn, "Work in Progress: An Integrated Laboratory Experience - A new environment for teaching communications," 36th annual Frontiers in Education Conference, San Diego, California, October 28 - 31, 2006.

  38. W. Kuhn; N. Lay; and E.Grigorian, “A Low-Volume, Low-Mass, Low-Power UHF Proximity Micro-Transceiver for Mars Exploration,” 12th NASA Symposium on VLSI Design, Oct 4-5, 2005.

  39. Y. Tugnawat; and W. Kuhn,“Low Temperature Performance of COTS Electronic Components for Future Mars Missions,” 12th NASA Symposium on VLSI Design, Oct 4-5, 2005.

  40. W. B. Kuhn, M. Mojarradi, and A. Moussessian, “A resonant switch for LNA protection in watt-level CMOS transceivers,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, pp. 2819 - 2825, Sept. 2005.

  41. Xin He and William B. Kuhn, “A 2.5 GHz Low-power, High-dynamic range, Self-tuned Q-Enhanced LC filter in SOI,” IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, pp. 1618-1628, Aug 2005.

  42. W. B. Kuhn, Xin He, M. Mojarradi, "Modeling spiral inductors in SOS processes", IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 51, (2004), p. 677-683, May 2004.

  43. W. B. Kuhn, D. Nobbe, D. Kelly, and A.W. Orsborn, “Dynamic Range Performance of On-Chip RF Bandpass Filters,” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, pp. 685-694, October 2003.

  44. Erik J. Brandon, Emily Wesseling, Vincent Chang and William Kuhn, “Printed microinductors on flexible substrates for power applications” IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies, pp. 517-523, Sept. 2003.

  45. N. M. Ibrahim, and W. B. Kuhn, “An approach for the calculation of magnetic field within square spiral inductors at low frequency,” International Journal of Numerical Modelling: Electronic Networks, Devices, and Fields, 15:339-354, 2002.

  46. William B. Kuhn, Aaron W. Orsborn, Matthew C. Peterson, Shobak R. Kythakyapuzha, Aziza I. Hussein , Jun Zhang, Jianming Li, Eric A. Shumaker, and Nandakumar C. Nair, "Spiral Inductor Performance in Deep-Submicron Bulk-CMOS with Copper Interconnects," Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium, pp. 385-388, 2002.

  47. W. B. Kuhn and N. M. Ibrahim, "Analytical Modeling of Current Crowding Effects in Multi-turn Spiral Inductors," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques , pp. 31-38, Jan. 2001.

  48. W. B. Kuhn, D.R. Hummels, and S. A. Dyer, "A Senior-Level RF Design Course Combining Traditional Lectures with an Open-Laboratory Format," Frontiers in Education Conference, September 2000.

  49. Kuhn, W. B., Design of Integrated, Low-Power, Radio Receivers in BiCMOS Technologies, Ph.D. Dissertation, Bradley Department of Electrical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, December 1995.

  50. Cox, F. L., Kuhn, W. B., Murray, J. P., and Tynor, S. D., XSPICE Mixed-Mode Circuit Simulator, Source code and User/Design documents, Distributed by Georgia Tech Research Institute, 1993 - Present. Used in several commercial simulators.

  51. Cox, F. L., Kuhn, W. B., Murray, J. P., and Tynor, S. D., “Code-Level Modeling in XSPICE ,” Proceedings IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 1992 (ISCAS ’92), vol. 2, pp. 871-874, 10-13 May, 1992.

  52. William B. Kuhn, "A Real-Time Pitch Recognition Algorithm for Music Applications," Computer Music Journal, vol. 14, no. 3, Fall 1990.