Abstract. A new approach based on antenna theory is presented to describe the lighming returnstroke process. The lightning channel is approximated by a straight and vertical monopole antenna with distributed resistance (a so-called lossy antenna) above a perfectly conducting ground. The antenna is fed at its lower end by a voltage source such that the antenna input current, which represents the lighming return-stroke current at the lightning channel base, can be specified. An electric field integral equation (EFIE) in the time domain is employed to describe the electromagnetic behavior of this !ossy monopole antenna. The numerical solution of EFIE by the method of moments (MOM) provides the time-space distribution of the current and line charge density along the antenna. This new antenna-theory (or electromagnetic) model with specified current at the channel base requires only two adjustable parameters: the return-stroke propagation speed for a nonresistive channel and the channel resistance per unit length, each assumed to be constant (independent of time and height). The new model is compared to four of the most commonly used "engineering" return-stroke models in terms of the temporal-spatial distribution of channel current, the line charge density distribution, and the predicted electromagnetic fields at different distances. A reasonably good agreement is found with the modified transmission line model with linear current decay with height (MTLL) and with the Diendorfer-Uman (DU) model.

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In this paper, a stair-planar phased array antenna system for mobile broadcast satellite reception in Ku-band will be introduced. The height of the antenna is only 6 cm and the system has two-dimensional electronic scanning capability. The design procedures of low profile high gain microstrip sub-array antennas, low noise amplifiers, hybrid analog phase shifters, along with a novel fast electronic beamforming algorithm will be discussed in this paper. The mobile phased array antenna receives LHCP and RHCP signals simultaneously. For each polarization 496 microstrip elements have been used to provide a radiation gain of 31.5 dBi. This phased array system scans 2 8 in azimuth and 20 in elevation with less than 3 dB scanning loss. The main objective of this design is to develop a Ku-band phased array system with very low cost components and a minimum number of tracking sensors. A novel beamforming algorithm compensates for the fabrication inaccuracies of the microwave components and variations in their characteristics due to ambient changes.Neither a priori knowledge of the satellite's direction, nor the phase-voltage characteristic of the phase shifters are required in this algorithm which results in eliminating an expensive laborious calibration procedure. The real time field tests verify that the developed mobile antenna system can nullify the base vehicle yaw disturbances up to 60 deg/s and 85 deg/s 2 .

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In this paper, the fabrication and characterization of newly developed photonic crystal (PC) polarization-controlling devices on a silicon-on-insulator wafer for integrated terahertz applications are presented. The polarization converter is composed of periodic asymmetric loaded PC slab waveguide. Square-and circular-hole PC slab waveguides were studied using a 3-D finite-difference time-domain method. For a square-hole PC-based polarization rotator, polarization rotation efficiency higher than 90% was achieved within the normalized frequency band of = 0 258 0 267. In circular-hole PC polarization converter, the polarization conversion efficiency dropped to 70% for the aforementioned frequency band. Low polarization conversion efficiency of the circular-hole PC-based device is attributed to scattering loss at the top loaded layers. Thus, the square-hole PC structure is a better candidate for integrated terahertz polarization-controlling devices.Planar terahertz integrated circuit technology was developed to implement the proposed device. Characterization setup was designed using rigorous numerical methods to use the newly introduced Agilent Millimeter-wave PNA-X network analyzer (up to 500 GHz) as a source. Scattering parameter characterizations provide a good measure of polarization extinction ratio. For the devices designed for the central frequency of = 200 GHz, it was observed that, within the frequency band of 198-208 GHz ( = 0.26-0.272), the ratio of 21 to 11 was higher than 15 dB. The bandwidth is in good agreement with our preliminary design presented before.

Abstract-In this paper, the problem of scattering and radiation in the presence of a material half-space is solved using the Transient spectral domain method (TSDM). The TSDM is a general theoretical approach for exact solution to the time-dependent sources radiation in the presence of stratified media. A source used is an electrically short magnetic dipole with impulse current distribution in time domain. It is located in air region in the vicinity of lossy half-space. The method requires the proper spatial Fourier transform for theoretical formulation of the problem. The new closed-form expressions is achieved in terms of spectral domain variable and time. Also a number of special cases are presented for verification of this procedure.

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