Abstract
Problem statement: In this study Microelectrical Mechanical System (MEMS) switches were proposed to design a reconfigurable/multi-band antenna to replaced PIN diode switches or semiconductor switches due to lower insertion losses, good isolation, much lower intermodulation distortion, and lower power consumption. The antenna is able to operate at very high frequencies. Approach: A reconfigurable antenna that is capable to operate at several frequencies was proposed by introducing two adjacent patches along with main radiating patch and two MEMS switches. Parametric analysis of the size of the wing patches was done for finding optimum size. A comparative study was done for Alumina, SiN, GaAs and Teflon as MEMS bridge materials for finding better results in terms of return loss and number of bands. The design was performed by using 3D electromagnetic simulator HFSS considering ideal MEMS switches. Results: It was found that SiN as MEMS bridge material makes the antenna to operate at 16.76, 23.56 and 27.7 GHz in the "OFF" states and operate at 20.9 and 21.91 GHz in the "ON" states of MEMS switches. Conclusion/Recommendations: MEMS cantilever beam material played an important role for providing antenna to operate at multi-band frequencies. The proposed multiband/reconfigurable antenna can be implemented with easy fabrication process steps by the Sandwich method of fabrication.
Highlights
Reconfigurable multi-band antennas are attractive for many military and commercial applications where it is required to have a single common aperture antenna that can be dynamically reconfigured to transmit on multiple frequency bands
We proposed a multi-band reconfigurable antenna using RF Microelectrical Mechanical System (MEMS) switches that can be fabricated with easy process steps
It is concluded that the MEMS cantilever beam material plays an important role for providing antenna to operate at multi-band frequencies
Summary
Reconfigurable multi-band antennas are attractive for many military and commercial applications where it is required to have a single common aperture antenna that can be dynamically reconfigured to transmit (or receive) on multiple frequency bands Such commonaperture antennas lead to considerable savings in size, weight and cost. Excellent RF performance, large tuning range and integration capability are the key characteristics, enabling system implementation with potential improvements in size, cost and increased functionality They are normally built on high-resistivity silicon wafers, gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafers and quartz substrates using semiconductor microfabrication technology with a typical four-to six-mask level processing[7,8,9,10,11]. It consists of three patches placed on a 18×10 mm Rogers substrate of thickness 0.32 mm. The two wing patches are placed on the two sides of the centre patch to obtain reconfigurability
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