The programme for the April ARMMS Conference, which was held at Milton Hill House, Steventon, UK, covered a rich diversity of subjects in the RF and microwave sector, presented by speakers representing leading players from both industry and academia. The two-day event was sponsored by The Technology Academy, a training company specializing in the RF and telecoms sectors.

The spectrum of papers was particularly wide. Guillaume Pailloncy of NMDG began by describing an add-on kit for network analyzers that can be used to accurately characterize nonlinear RF and HF components in the time and frequency domain. Louise Foote, from Surrey Satellite Technology, presented a low-cost compact anechoic chamber for testing satellite antennas, alleviating the need to rely upon external and expensive external test house facilities, while Steve Nightingale of Cobham considered a radio system design for RF interference suppression in a jamming environment.

There was significant content from research facilities and universities too, with Martin Alexander of NPL presenting the virtues of a technique for characterizing low reflectivity antenna supports for electrically small antennas and pattern measurement via optical fiber to eliminate common mode current errors. Hugh Sasse of De Montford University outlined a Feature Selective Validation (FSV) method to enable RF measurement comparisons to be quantified, while Qing Lu from the University of Northumbria described the optimum design of a probe fed dual frequency patch antenna using a genetic algorithm, which made timely references to Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The award for long distance travel would have to go to two speakers from the USA – Tim Reeves of The Mathworks, who considered the behavioral modeling of digital pre-distortion amplifier systems, and David Williams from Teledyne Microwave in California, who described a new frequency synthesizer for commercial satellite communications in Ku-band.

The accolade for Best Paper presented over the two days, which was voted for by delegates, went to Janice Hendry of Roke Manor Research, who presented a paper on surface waves, describing what they are and to what uses they could be put.

The conference programme was organized to enable the most effective interaction between speakers and delegates. There was also a technical exhibition that provided the opportunity for delegates to get hands on experience as well as the ARMMS dinner on the first evening, which provided a convivial and enjoyable networking environment. Dr. John Crute from The Technology Academy acted as Programme Co-coordinator for the conference and Roger Hopper of Roke was Chairman.

To read detailed abstracts of the papers and to view details of the 2009 conferences, visit: www.armms.org.