Celebrating women engineers

Date Published: 10.03.2022

Celebrating the leading role of women’s research in the field of antennas and propagation, the work of two Wadham engineers has been selected for a special publication.

Detail from a figure in the publication showing data for intermediate object locations.

The special collection of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation (IEEE OJAP) for International Women’s Day features work by DPhil student Jiaruo Yan (Engineering 2013) and Professor Ekaterina Shamonina, Fellow and Tutor in Electrical Engineering.

Their paper, written with Christopher Stevens, A Metamaterial Position Sensor Based on Magnetoinductive Waves reports first investigations of a new contactless localizing sensor based on the propagation of slow magnetoinductive waves in metamaterials (materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring materials). This works because when an object impinges on the near field of the metamaterial's meta-atoms, it introduces a local defect resulting in the reflections of magnetoinductive waves.

Professor Shamonina comments: "The contactless localisation of objects near a ‘meta-surface’ is somewhat analogous to echolocation or to ultrasound imaging, only that we rely not on sound waves but on magnetoinductive waves travelling in metamaterials by virtue of magnetic coupling, bouncing off obstacles thus revealing their position. Potential applications range from quality control for 3D printing to medical imaging."

"We are proud and grateful for this recognition by the IEEE and we are continuing our work on this exciting and promising topic," she adds.