Abstract
A novel hybrid water antenna with tunable frequency and beamwidth is proposed. An L-shaped metallic strip is adopted as the feeding structure of the antenna in order to effectively broaden the operating bandwidth. The L-shaped strip feeder and a rectangular water dielectric resonator constitute the driven element. Five identical rectangular water dielectric elements are mounted linearly with respect to the driven element, which act as the directors and contribute to narrow the beamwidth. By varying the height of the liquid water level in the driven element, the proposed antenna is able to tune to different operational frequencies. Furthermore, it is also able to adjust to different beamwidths and gains via varying the number of director elements. A prototype is fabricated by using 3-D printing technology, where the main parts of the antenna are printed with photopolymer resin, and then the ground plane and L-shaped strip feeder are realized by using adhesive copper tapes. Measurement results agree well the simulation ones. A tunable frequency ranging from 4.66 GHz to 5.65 GHz is obtained and a beam steering along a fixed direction with a gain variation less than 0.5 dB is realized.
Highlights
Reconfigurable antennas, which can achieve more than one operational mode by mechanical or electronic approaches, are considered to be a good solution for the design of multifunctional antennas [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
As the director elements increases (Case 2 and Case 3), the resonant depth at lower frequency goes higher and a small frequency shift appears. These results indicate that the beamwidth can be tuned by controlling the number of director elements though there is a certain effect on the impedance performance
A novel hybrid water antenna with tunable frequency and beamwidth characteristic was proposed in the work
Summary
Reconfigurable antennas, which can achieve more than one operational mode by mechanical or electronic approaches, are considered to be a good solution for the design of multifunctional antennas [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. In order to complete the whole water antenna system, the antenna substrate and the water containers have to be glued together by using adhesive stuffs. This traditional assembly method increases the processing complexity and the risk of manufacturing error. In order to improve the electric performance of a fluidic antenna, a seamless design method is proposed in this paper. The antenna substrate can be made by using 3-D printing technology instead of the traditional ways The advantage of this method simplifies the design process, and reduces the manufacturing error, which opens a new and reliable pathway to liquid antenna design. A hybrid water directional antenna with tunable frequency and beamwidth is proposed as a proof-of-concept demonstrator
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
