Sifiso Gambahaya's webpage
 
WELCOME TO SIFISO GAMBAHAYA'S HOMEPAGE

BACKGROUND

I was born in Zimbabwe and have lived in other parts of the world including India and the U.S.A, in 1998 I  joined the University of Cape Town in the Electrical Engineering Department for a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Degree which I obtained in June 2004. Earlier in that year I had joined the  UCT Radar & Remote Sensing Group continuing my work in antenna design for my MSc project.

UNDERGRADUATE WORK

In 2003, my undergraduate thesis was supervised by Professor Manfrend Reineck. I was required to design a wideband patch antenna for mobile communications in the frequency range of 1.5GHz to 2.1 GHz  with a gain of 12 dBi.

POSTGRADUATE WORK

In February 2004 I joined the RRSG  and embarked on an MSc supervised by Prof. M.R. Inggs.  I am involved in the design of an X- band antenna for an airborne imaging radar. The antenna of choice for this application is a fan beam antenna known as a pillbox antenna.A Pillbox antenna is a linearly polarized cylindrical reflector embedded between two parallel plates. It is usually fed by a waveguide and exhibits a singular mode of propagation. The title of my MSc dissertation is " The Design and Implementation of the Pillbox Antenna for SASARII". The main specifications in the design are

• Single mode of electromagnetic propagation
• An operating frequency of  9.3GHz
• an azimuth beamwidth of 3.8 degrees and an elevation beamwidth of 25 degrees.
• An antenna operating bandwidth of 100 MHz which is dtermined by the transmitter.
• Peak power of 3.5 KW.
• The antenna should operate at a platform height of 3000-8000 m.
  

• It is easy to design and the cost of production is low.
• It is dually polarized and it is also a wideband antenna.
• It has a high power handling capability.
  

More details about this project, amongst other projects can be found here. The short paper which was written for this thesis is currently under review for possible publication by  the IEEE Antennas and propagation Magazine in the Antenna Designers Notebook as a tutorial on the design and performance evaluation of aperture antennas . It can be used as a guideline for an MSc or undergraduate antenna laboratory, more on this later. My interests involve Antenna design, RF and Microwave engineering, Convergent Telecommunications Networks and World trade & Globalization.

View Curriculum Vitae:  CV-pdf.

View  MSc thesis and paper: Note that it might take a while to link up to the url but it opens eventually!! Thesis and paper

You may also find a collection of my favorite pics here.

CONTACT DETAILS

Sifiso Gambahaya                                                                            
University of CapeTown
Department of Electrical Engineering                                                    
Menzies Building
RM 617 
Private Bag
Rondebosch 7701
South Africa
Phone no. (021) 650 3756
E-mail to: sifiso@rrsg.ee.uct.ac.za , gamba007@gmail.com

Last Updated:  23/ 06 / 2006