A beam-steering dual-polarization reconfigurable antenna

Abstract

With the current state of affairs in the development of antennas in the wireless communication field, the need of compact multiband, multifunctional and cost effective antenna is increased. The study of reconfigurable antennas has made great progress in recent years. In this article, a multi-purpose reconfigurable antenna capable of dual-polarization and operating nine modes corresponding to nine steerable beam directions is presented. This antenna consists of two layers. The bottom layer is the aperture-coupled driven patch, and the top layer is the parasitic layer with a grid of 3 × 3 patches. The switching network lies on the upper surface of the parasitic layer thereby it is separated from the driven element. The aperture-coupled driven patch is integrated with switches with ON/OFF status to change the direction of the aperture to realize the dual-polarization. Two polarizations are vertical to each other. Patches of the parasitic layer are electrically-small square-shaped metallic, these patches are connected by PIN diode switches. These switches are controled by DC bias lines and with ON/OFF status to change the geometry of parasitic surface, which in turn changes the current distribution on the antenna, thus provides the reconfigurability in beam-steering. The antenna operates in the frequency band 4.1–4.6 GHz in each mode of operation, in the meantime, the polarization can be changed via switches with ON/OFF status. The simulated impedance and radiation pattern results an average of ∼ 6 dB realized gain in all modes of operation. It has nine steerable beam directions in θ ∈ {−30°, 0°, 30°}; φ ∈ {0°, 45°, 90°, 135°}.