Micro-controlled Tree Shaped Reconfigurable Patch Antenna with RF-Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Nowadays reconfigurable antennae are finding their importance in a variety of applications. This research proposes to design a novel micro controller based frequency reconfigurable patch antenna using RF P---I---N diodes. This proposed design consists of three RF P---I---N diodes and by adjusting the ON and OFF state of the diodes using the microcontroller unit, the radiating frequency of the antenna can be changed and hence it covers different wireless bands. Eight different switching states were achieved through these three P---I---N diode combinations. A prototype antenna was fabricated with a length and width of 50 mm × 60 mm respectively and a substrate thickness of 1.6 mm. The simulations were carried out through HFSS and the results were obtained using vector network analyzer. Upon comparing the simulation results with the actual prototype antenna, the return loss was observed to be below ź10 dB and VSWR value was <2 for all states. This proposed antenna also doubly serves as an RF harvester by harvesting 4.9 V in the WLAN/WiMAX range.