ELECTRONICALLY RECONFIGURABLE BEAM STEERING ANTENNA USING EMBEDDED RF PIN BASED PARASITIC ARRAYS (ERPPA)

Abstract

In this paper, an electronically reconflgurable beam steering antenna using embedded RF PIN switches based parasitic array (ERPPA) is proposed for modern wireless communication systems that operate at 5.8GHz frequency. In the proposed antenna, a single driven element is fed by a coaxial probe, while each of the two parasitic elements is integrated with an RF PIN switches that embedded inside the substrate. In the conventional reconflgurable antennas, the RF PIN switches are mounted on narrow slots created on the top or bottom layer of the radiator/parasitic elements, which could lead to the dimensional changes of the antenna and degrade the performance in terms of beam steering and return loss. However, this research proposes an exclusive solution where the RF PIN diodes at parasitic elements are embedded inside the substrate thus no additional slots have to be created to mount the SMCs on the antenna. In this regard, the proposed antenna is highly competent to eliminate the intermodulation efiect generated by the RF PIN diodes and the other passive elements associated with the PIN diodes. In this research, extensive investigations revealed that the parasitic element dimension and the selection of RF PIN switches signiflcantly in∞uence