Reconfigurable antenna with loading water fluidic switch

Abstract

This article presents a frequency reconfigurable antenna with loading fluidic switches. The liquid reconfigurable antenna consists of an H-typed slot antenna and four groups of fluidic switches. The designed H-typed slot is placed on the backside of the antenna and excited by a straight 50 Ω microstrip line on the front side. As most of the electromagnetic energy is radiated through the slot, the surface currents on the proposed antenna are concentrated on the four branches of the H-typed slot. Four fluidic switches fabricated by using 3D printing technology are located at the ends of the four branches of the H-typed slot, aiming to adjust resonant frequency of the antenna. Due to the symmetry of antenna structure, five states can be obtained by loading and unloading liquid distilled water in the fluidic switches, which provides five switching frequencies cover from 3.38 to 3.83 GHz. Advantages such as fast switching speed, low cost, easy fabrication, and high radiation efficiency are achieved by the proposed reconfigurable antenna, making it a good candidate for multifunctional antenna application.