Date & Time: Sunday, 22 January, 2023, 1:30pm – 5:30pm

Organizer: Jan Budroweit, DLR, Germany

The half-day workshop will introduce a global coverage of latest RF and mmW devices, circuits and systems that are desired for low Earth orbit (LEO) missions or that already have proven flight heritage in space. Specific topics of this workshops are space system design under consideration of radiation effects, user terminals for new space LEO constellations, LEO based mmW radar concepts for earth science applications and a recap of the CubeSat mission of the technical university Berlin.

Presentation #1 (jan Budroweit, DLR)
Space System Design under Consideration of Radiation Effects

Presentation #2 (Nuno Borges, Universidade de Aveiro)
User Terminal for new space LEO Constellations

Presentation #3 (Srinivas Prasad, NASA JPL)
LEO based mmWave radar concepts for earth science applications

Presentation #4 (Julian Bartholomäus, TU Berlin)
30 years of satellite development at Technische Universität Berlin

Organizers: Fabian Michler, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg / Sykno GmbH

During the past decade, vital sign sensing radars have become a quickly growing research topic in microwave engineering, promising the contactless and therefore patient-friendly measurement of various vital signs. This workshop explains the fundamentals of the research by introducing the underlying physiology of heartbeat and respiration, the resulting body surface movements and vibrations. System design challenges and limitations will be explained on the example of high precision continuous-wave radars. Moreover, the challenges and outcomes of long-term studies in hospitals and home-care will be shared with the audience. Focused talks provide insights into the latest developments. This includes research in the field of passive sensing systems, which analyze ambient wireless signals, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, to extract vital sign signals. Moreover, a commercial system for microwave-based blood pressure measurement will be presented, including a live demonstration

Presentation #1 (Fabian Michler, University Erlangen-Nuremberg / Sykno GmbH)
Fundamentals and System Design Challenges for Radar-Based Vital Sign Sensing

Presentation #2 (Nils Albrecht, Hamburg University of Technology )
Interferometric Radar for Cardiovascular Monitoring

Presentation #3 (George Shaker, University of Waterloo)
Observations from using mm-Wave Radars in Hospitals & Long-Term Care Homes

Presentation #4 (Aaron Carman, Changzhi Li, Texas Tech University)
Passive Radar Sensing for Motion Detection using Ambient Wireless Signals

Presentation #5 (Nastassia Vysotskaya, Infineon Technologies)
Blood Pressure Monitoring

Organizer: Timo Jaeschke, 2π-LABS

This half-day workshop aims to introduce the general FMCW radar basics in terms of hardware system level design and signal processing for industrial radar applications. First, a general overview of the basic FMCW radar system design objectives and application fields is given. This is followed by an insight into the most critical hardware design challenges and ways to avoid common design mistakes. A lot of examples are given in terms of a state-of-the-art D-Band wideband radar sensor as an example implementation. The second part of the workshop provides a unique hands-on high-end radar experience and you will learn how to process IF signals, extract precise distance measurements from the range-plot signals or how to produce range doppler plots. A lot of Python language programming examples will be provided and live sensor data or live measurements are utilized to create a fun learning experience. This workshop will provide you with a well equipped toolbox for a smooth start into the FMCW radar signal processing world for the next >95 GHz EHF industrial radar generation.

Organizer: Abbas Omar, University Magdeburg

Utilizing Millimeter Waves in mobile communications has been known to be associated with much lower radiation powers and much shorter communication ranges. This has given rise to what are called “Microcells” and “Picocells”, whose coverage areas don’t exceed few meters. These cells are responsible for the communication with the User Equipment (UE). Their backhaul communications with high-power Base Stations (BS) are either wired (usually fiber-optical) or in a Line-of-Sight (LOS) scenario. LOS wireless communications don’t involve wave-matter interactions, as any LOS obstacle heavily deteriorates the communication quality. Health aspects of 5G and Beyond is therefore limited to the extremely low-power short-range Picocell-UE communication. Another related relevant aspect is the very strong Millimeter-Wave attenuation in water-rich substances characterizing biological tissues. Millimeter-Waves can’t therefore penetrate into biological objects (e.g. human and animal bodies and plants) more than few millimeters. Health aspects must therefore be investigated within the skin area. Deeply inside the body, Millimeter Waves assume negligible intensities, which are much safer than those of earlier standards (e.g. 3G and 4G). A group of very competent scientists will talk at this Workshop. These represent Standardization Institutions, academic scientists involved in health issues of electromagnetic radiations, and physicists, who can qualitatively estimate the in-vivo radiation levels and the electromagnetic loss mechanisms dominating the wave-matter interactions in biological substances. The expected results should be very calming for the Public, as it will be shown that the major Standards (e.g. ICNIRP, IEEE, and ANSI) allow for harmless radiation levels, and this has been justified by the long-time experience with man-made radiations in the last decades (Broadcasting and different Wireless Communication modalities). It will also be shown that social-media widely-spread views of “Pseudoscience” and “Conspiracy Theorists” claiming serious health hazards, which are caused generally by Millimeter-Wave radiations and particularly as related to 5G and Beyond, are clearly BASELESS. To a great extent, these claims are based on mixing up “ionizing” and “nonionizing” radiations. The mechanisms of wave-matter interactions in the latter are fully described by the constitutive parameters “Permittivity”, “Permeability”, and “Conductivity” for weak and moderate field intensities that don’t involve nonlinearities. These are macroscopic quantities (spatial moving averages) that average out spatial microscopic details. The averaging window is at most few hundredths of wavelength wide. Possible changes in critical and sensitive atomic or molecular structures (similar to that existing in e.g. DNA or nerve cells) cannot considerably exceed the macroscopic average. The latter is a reversible thermal one, as long as the radiated power levels don’t exceed those dictated by the Regulatory Agencies (e.g. FCC in USA).

Presentation #1 (C-K. Chou and K. Foster)
RF Exposure Levels from Mobile Phones and Base Stations

Presentation #2 (K. Grenier and D. Dubuc)
Considerations on RF Electromagnetic Waves Exposure Systems to Evaluate their Impact on Cells

Presentation #3 (D. Arnaud-Cormos and Ph. Leveque)
New Challenges Related to 5G Bio-electromagnetic Exposure for Laboratories Studies

Presentation #4 (S. Costanzo)
Health Aspects of 5G Antennas: Current Low-Level Evidences and Experimental Design Strategies

Presentation #5 (P. Siegel and D. Gultekin)
This is your Brain on 5G