Triumphant Three Day Workshop MAM 2018 5-7 July 2018

(RF & Microwave Research Laboratory, Department of ECE, Faculty of Engineering)

The establishment of RF & Microwave Research Laboratory with an Anechoic Chamber Facility under MRP funding has been completed recently in June 2018 by the Principal Investigator Dr S Suganthi. With a view to publicize its existence and to start the functionality of the established facility, a National Level Three Day Workshop on Microstrip Antennas and Measurements (MAM 2018) was proposed as an outcome of RF & Microwave Research Laboratory.

This workshop MAM 2018 was organized by the RF & Microwave Research Centre through the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Faculty of Engineering, CHRIST(Deemed to be University) during 5-7 July 2018.

The explosive growth in the demand for information transfer using handsets and personal communications devices has created the need for major advancements of antennas. One type of antenna that fulfils most of the wireless system requirements is the planar antenna. It finds increasingly wide range of wireless applications in handheld mobile devices, satellite communication systems and biomedical applications.

The existence of our Anechoic Chamber facility has been publicized & promoted with brochure & invitation attachments through more than 800 email IDs across the country & a few abroad too! The complete arrangement was fully supported by Mrs.K. Inbanila, HOD, ECE.

This three day workshop was exclusively envisioned for faculty members, research scholars and PG/UG students of ECE and participants from industry to have an exposure to current trends in planar antenna technology and hands-on training with HFSS for simulation of antennas. Members belonging to CSE, EEE & other branches, who showed interest in the collaborative research work, were also invited. There were five resource persons, 10 members from vendors side and 41 participants from various institutions across country as well as from CHRIST University made the show a grand one!

 The MAM 2018 was colorful and fruitful with resource persons ​Dr Raghavan NIT -Trichy, Dr Surendra Pal, ISRO /D​RDO-DIAT- Pune, Mr. Puneet Kumar Misha, ISRO Satellite Centre-Bangalore, Dr Shiv Narayan, Senior Scientist, CSIR, NAL-Bangalore and Dr S Suganthi, Professor, CHRIST(Deemed to be University). 

The event was started with devotional invocation dance & song followed by lighting of lamp. Mr.Shashikumar, coordinator of workshop welcomed the gathering. Dr Iven Jose, Associate Dean, the living example of dynamic leader, delivered the presidential address and described the importance of the workshop and its connectivity to the industries and academia.

Dr Surendra Pal, Former Vice Chancellor of Defense Institute of Advanced Technology(DRDO), Pune and Distinguished Scientist, Associate Director and Program Director, Satellite Navigation Program at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore presented Inaugural Address. He elucidate the importance of RF & Microwave and the need for keeping this field active to keep in pace with changing technological trends.

Dr S Raghavan, Senior Professor of NIT Trichy illuminated the presence of newly opened Anechoic Chamber at our campus and explained how the existing facilities can be utilized and improvised with newer ideas and modern instruments. He pointed out the capacity for the interconnection of platforms, systems, and applications of the RF & Microwave components & design by highlighting the ways for reputed publications as outcome of quality research.  He also provided suggestions for future events to be in association with IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society for engineering services to reach out the society.

Dr S Suganthi delivered the exploratory development of anechoic chamber from the scratch. She acknowledged the support provided by university authorities, recalling & recognizing the contributions of her fellow members and other great personalities who supported the journey of establishment of Anechoic Chamber. Thereafter all the guests and vendors visited anechoic chamber to witness the facilities. It was a memorable grand show for three days.

On the first day after the inaugural session, Dr Surendra Pal explained the significance of antenna polarization. He mentioned that the methods of antenna and microwave subject content delivery should be changed to attract the younger students of this era.

Further, Dr Raghavan presented intricacies & design aspects of MIC filters. He insisted the inclusion of innovations in teaching without diminishing the fundamental concepts and teaching methods. He spoke about the importance of writing our own coding for the antenna designs using computational electromagnetic methods and MATLAB instead of merely using commercial softwares alone. He projected the importance of motivating students to become successful RF engineers for servicing to the humankind nationally and internationally.

Dr Puneet Kumar Mishra, Scientist IRSO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru delivered technical talk on the trends in antennas and measurements explaining the challenges involved in ISRO space missions through several examples of ISRO projects. He explained the need for RF engineers for space programmes.

Dr Shiv Narayan , Senior Scientist, CSIR, NAL, Bengaluru presented a fascinating talk on the design challenges involved in antennas for Aerospace applications and the need for radomes. He took the audience to a greater level of intellectual thoughts through his technical content on FSS and metamaterial structures.

Second day, the vendor Mr.Kaviyarasu from Entuple Technologies provided hands-on training to the participants using ANSYS HFSS EM simulation tool using 25 user licensed software available in the department laboratory.  During post lunch, Mr.Naveen from Anritsu presented demonstration on the usage and capacity of Vector Network Analyzer (VNA).

Third day, Dr Suganthi presented a technical talk on the antenna design. During her presentation, she explained the techniques to design fractal & metamaterial antennas and presented the methods to develop MATLAB codings for the same.  Her presentation was well appreciated by participants and a few became motivated for focusing their research in the fractal antenna design.

The highlights on the participation of vendors were focused towards arrangements for hands-on training, demonstration and antenna measurements for the benefit of participants.

@ Entuple Technologies Mr.Kaviayarasu: Hands-on training with HFSS software

@ Conet Technologies Mr.Jayakumar: Sponsorship through providing a participant

@ Conet & Environtech: Mr.Appayyaswamy/Mr.Gaurav: Antenna measurements/demonstration

@ Accura Teqipments-Mr.Veeranna & Mr.Vijay: Prior arrangements, PCB hands-on/demonstration

@ Anritsu - Mr. Naveen & team - VNA demonstration & manuals

@ ​Accurex Solutions Pvt Ltd.: Mr.Adarsh Tandi– Demonstration of advanced printing machine

The participants were researchers, faculty members & students from NIT-Trichy, NIT-Suratkal, PES University, Anna University, Reva University, BNMIT, Siddaganga Institute of Tech.,  St.Joseph Engg. college,  K Ramakrishna College of Engg., ECE, EEE & CSE depts. (CHRISTITES).

The researchers were encouraged to take chance of getting the measurements for their own antennas brought by them. They were happy and expressed gratefulness since this rarest chance could help them for producing journal papers as outcome of their research.

Many eminent personalities in India & abroad had sent wishes for the successful conduction of the workshop. This includes the wishes from Dr Bharathi Bhat (Retired Eminent Professor, IIT Delhi, currently into spirituality), Dr D Guha (Professor, Institute of Radio Physics, Kolkata, InCAP Organizer), Dr E Alphones Arokiaswamy (Professor, NTU, Singapore) and Dr Chinmoy Saha (Professor, Indian Institute of Space Technology, Trivandrum) had sent their wishes for the success of the workshop!

The event was well taken by all the participants. In general, the feedback from participants spells one’s strength/weakness! ​In MAM 2018, it was very much encouraging & positive with unanimous request for conducting many such useful future events. They went to the extent of requesting the organizer for mentoring them in the area of RF & Microwave! The MAM 2018 spells adorable success through everyone's involvement, cooperation & contributions!