Doctoral researcher Oluwabunmi Tade won one of only two prestigious €2,000 Young Engineer Prizes at the 42nd European Microwave Conference (EuMC) in Amsterdam in November 2012, on the strength of the paper that he wrote and presented at the conference. The EuMC is a top conference in the academic calendar, and its awards are highly sought after. The other prize was won by a student from UCLA.

The paper, ‘Negative Impedance Converters for Broadband Antenna Matching’, discussed how to realize a Negative Impedance Converters (NIC) and demonstrated its ability to achieve non-Foster elements which are important in achieving broadband matching of antennas.

“This award means a lot to me because it is a reward for all the hard work myself and my supervisors put into the project”, explained Tade. “One of the major challenges was realizing a working prototype of the NIC because of the stability challenges we faced. My supervisors’ experiences and knowledge were very helpful at this time as there were times when I was ready to give up and move on to other projects, they were certain it could be solved and it was.”

“The NIC idea shows huge potential to change the small antenna research area but there is still a lot to be done to make it a viable competitor with existing alternatives. I hope to carry on working on this subject area to solve other problems associated with NICs”, continued Tade.

Students from the School of EESE are encouraged to attend conferences as they provide great opportunities to present papers to their peers, to network with academics and industry figures, and to hear about the latest research in the field. Every year, the School sends as many students as possible to conferences around the world, which not only adds to the university experience, but also helps with stepping into careers upon completion of studies.

Tade’s supervisor, Dr Peter Gardner and co-supervisor, Professor Peter Hall, both from the School of EESE, were co-authors. “We are both delighted that Tade has won this award as a reward for his hard work and dedication”, added Dr Gardner. “We are also excited about the future for this line of research work, which offers the prospect of beating the accepted limits on the size and bandwidth of antennas for radio systems. It is a great example of how PhD students in EESE at Birmingham participate in high impact research.”

Following on from this award, Tade was invited to submit an extended paper for a special issue of the International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technology, published by Cambridge University press. The paper, titled ‘Antenna bandwidth broadening with a Negative Impedance Converter’ was also co-authored by Dr Gardner and Professor Hall. It will appear in the special issue of the journal later this year.

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You can read more about the award here, on page 14.