A wideband and high-gain circularly polarized reconfigurable antenna array based on the solid-state plasma

Abstract

In this paper, a wideband and high-gain circularly polarized (CP) antenna array with polarization-reconfigurable characteristics is presented based on the solid-state plasma (SSP). The proposed antenna is composed of switchable rotating radiation structures and a switchable feed network by simulating the different SSP branches. To investigate the CP operating mechanism, a reconfigurable CP element is designed through characteristic mode analysis (CMA). A switchable sequential-phase feed network is then proposed which can provide separately two rotational excitations. A spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) is adopted for radiation patches to improve gain and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. Finally, a high-gain and wideband 2 × 2 CP reconfigurable antenna array is designed. This array achieves left-hand circular polarization (LHCP) and right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) modes when different SSP branches are excited. The array has an overlapped impedance bandwidth of 61.9 % (3.17 to 6.01 GHz) and an overlapped AR bandwidth of 40.2 % (4.01 to 6.03 GHz) in two CP states, and the peak gain is 11.68 dBic.