Peer review template based on IEEEtran and pandoc

When you start to be involved in scientific publishing, one of the side-effects is to become a reviewer for some journals. This side-effect is an extremely important part of the scientific publishing process, which should ensure the quality of the published papers. It has also some other advantages, as to be able to view the papers few months before they would be published. The major downside is the time required for a good review, even days.

To simplify the writing process I decided to create a simple workflow which is based on \(\LaTeX\), IEEEtran and pandoc. The final output will be made up of a .pdf file, formatted as an IEEEtran journal, and a .rst file, formatted as a reStructuredText. The .pdf is ideal for viewing the math, figures, etc., while the .rst file is ideal to be pasted in the comments part, which is the part that will be sent in the email to the authors.

International Morse Code

This is a nerdy post, just to share a cheat-sheet which contains the International Morse Code along with the NATO Phonetic alphabet. I created this, using various resources online, just to lose some time…

Import a RF design (and logos) from svg, png or Gerber files into Kicad

KiCad is a wonderful software for PCB designing, it is open-source and can handle the complete workflow from the schematic to the final layout.

Unfortunately, it is not (yet) intended for RF circuit and antenna design. In these cases, a suitable program should be used, which could be ADS, CST, HFSS, or others. These are expensive but, unfortunately, the open-source tools are still not complete enough. I generally use multiple open-source tools depending of the requirements and quite often compare the results to evaluate the correctness.

Long story short, I was facing with the need to create a PCB by incorporating some custom Inductive Power Transfer coils, which I could export to a Gerber file from CST and some patch antennas and matching circuits, from ADS. The idea was to import the different parts from the Gerbers into different footprints, which are then assigned to schematics blocks and placed on the PCB.

There are no ways (yet) to get it simply by using some pre-baked functions, but some tricks are needed.

This post is a walk-through different options that can be used. I try to compare the options and outline the strengths of each one.

Notice that the same methods can be used to produce custom logos or any custom shape.