Abstract
This chapter discusses reconfigurable antennas that utilize unique material properties. It presents antennas and arrays developed using liquid metal, piezo‐electric material, and RF micro‐electro‐mechanical systems (MEMS). Often times pattern and frequency reconfigurable antennas require switches to activate different modes. Control system feedback is used to tune the length of the antenna automatically to the desired frequency of operation. Liquid metal antennas also enable directivity reconfigurable antennas. The directivity of the antenna can be adjusted based on inflating the elastomer to form a dome‐shaped antenna of various heights. Microelectromechanical microblowers pneumatically control the shape of the antenna. Phased arrays are a subset of pattern reconfigurable antennas. Typically, they are implemented by using solid‐state phase shifters/time delays, or through RF MEMs phase shifters. MEMS have shown a lot of promise as MEMS switches have incredibly low insertion loss as well have the ability to reach millimeterwave frequencies.
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