Project Design of Electrically Small Dielectric Resonator Antennas Program Engineering Term Academic Year 2025 Status Pending Research Area Electrical and Computer Engineering: Fields and Optics Description Electrically small antennas (ESAs) continue to receive attention as their compact size and high directivity are useful for size constrained applications. Wheeler's criterion defines an ESA as a device where the product of the radius of the circumscribing sphere and wave number at the operating frequency is less than one. These are commonly constructed using metallic radiators; however, the complexity of these architectures places a ceiling on their performance. This prompts the design of alternative antennas, including electrically small dielectric resonator antennas (ESDRAs). This research seeks to expand ESDRA research by characterizing new antenna structures. The initial phase consists of reproducing the results of an existing ESDRA. New structures are simulated and analyzed using Ansys High Frequency Simulation Software (HFSS). While the new designs undergo fabrication, standard antennas are characterized in an anechoic chamber to develop the reference data needed for measurements. The antenna structures discussed in this research indicate that ESDRAs are a valid alternative to existing antenna designs as they preserve radiation efficiency and increase aperture efficiency even as antenna size is electrically small. The fabricated ESDRAs will be measured in an anechoic chamber with custom automated testing software and compared to the simulated models. Supervisor Dimitrios Peroulis Mentor Alex David Santiago Vargas Type of work required Simulation, Fabrication, Assembly, and Testing Websites https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECE/People/ptProfile?resource_id=2967 Qualifications GPA above 3.0 Sophomore, Junior, or Senior Electromagnetics and RF coursework Knowledge of Ansys HFSS and MATLAB Credit Hours 2 Weekly Hours 7 (estimated)