Dr Liu Nengwu, Distinguished Professor Zhu Lei, and Associate Professor Choi Wai Wa from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau (UM), recently received one of the five Best Student Paper Awards at the 2017 National Conference on Antennas (NCANT), for their paper titled ‘Low-Profile Wideband Differential-Fed Microstrip Antenna under Operation of TM10 and TM12 Modes’.

A total of 474 technical papers were presented at this year’s conference, held in Xi’an, Shaanxi province. Among these papers, 207 were selected for the Best Student Paper Contest. Based on the evaluation results and recommendations from various experts, 30 papers were shortlisted for the final round and only five papers received the Best Student Paper Award. The winning papers are from Xidian University, UM, Tsinghua University, South China University of Technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, respectively.

The paper written by UM scholars proposes a novel design concept to enhance the impedance bandwidth of a differential-fed antenna under radiation of TM10 and TM12 modes. This design requires the antenna to meet certain key performance indicators, such as low profile, high gain, wide bandwidth, low sidelobe level, and stable normal radiation pattern. This paper was highly praised by participating scholars and industry experts.

The NCANT was founded in 1978. Starting in 2007, the conference has been held biennially in different cities in China and has attracted the attention of prominent scholars in China and abroad.This year’s conference was held together with the Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation 2017 and Electromagnetic Compatibility 2017. Together, the three events were known as the Asia-Pacific Electromagnetic Week 2017. The conference was focused on the theory, technology, and applications of antenna, electromagnetic computing, electromagnetic scattering, and measurement.