Thesis Topic

I'm looking for a topic for my thesis and I want to know if anyone knows a good place to look for topics related to microwave & RF.

Chris,

I do not know what school you attend, but in my experience students generally work with an advisor to find a suitable topic.

Many advisors prefer you choose a topic in their area. I would suggest you find the professors in your department that work in RF & microwave, and discuss this question with them.

Hi Christopher,

I would suggest that you pick a topic that you find interesting and would enjoy spending a considerable amount of time researching. Often professors will help a person choose a topic.

What areas of Microwave and RF do you find the most interesting: antennas, amplifiers, filters, resonators, couplers, power dividers, waveguides, etc.

Are there any applications that you find interesting?

Check out this recent "video":http://www.eeweb.com/blog/cody_miller/xray-that-penatrates-concrete-walls I found it interesting.
I spent some time researching near field radiated emission measurements. I was trying to find a procedure or test method to correlate near field measurements to far field measurements. We also created the ability to do 2D scanning of a system or PC board in operation and create a near field emissions map of the device. That was fun.

Christopher, do you have an RF/Microwave career direction you are aiming at? If so you might choose that for your thesis.

I've talked with a professor in the department about some of the work he is doing and about him being my adviser. He did say he may have something for me to do but also to go out and do some research for a potential worth while topic. That's why I was trying to find a push in the right direction as far as where to look.

I find most of those areas interesting which is part of my problem. I think I'm more interested in how things like antennas, filters, amplifiers, etc. work together which probably puts me in the realm of application, and this is where I lack information. I haven't had much exposure to applications so I'm not sure what I'll find interesting.

My thesis advisor specializes in RF systems. His area of interest is in software-defined radio, or SDR. SDR is gaining much more popularity due to the availability of systems that can perform all of the traditional radio processing digitally. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) are one such technology, as are hardware DSP devices from various manufacturers. SDR is definitely worth a look.

I actually think I heard something about SDR in my comm theory class today it sounded interesting. Thanks, I'm going to look into that.

You could combine your interests of antennas, filters, and amplifiers.

The RF amp has a harmonic filter between it and the antenna. All three components interact. The antenna provides a (very) non-50 ohm load at harmonic frequencies. The amplifier presents a (very) non-50 ohm source impedance at harmonic frequencies. How well then does the filter work at harmonic frequencies? How does one go about designing each of these three components so that they work together to meet a harmonic output specification at minimum cost and/or component count?

Why dont you choose a couple of firms that you would like to work at and contact them asking for advice?
Maybe the have something they would like to have investigated. It might be good for both parties, you get to know a bit about them and they about you.
Might lead to a job in the future. Or at least a contact that you can refer to when you are looking for your first job.