A New Class of Antenna Array With a Reconfigurable Element Factor

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 61; no. 4; pp. 1947 - 1955
• Main Authors: Zhouyuan Li, Rodrigo, D., Jofre, L., Cetiner, B. A.
• Format: Journal Article Publication
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.04.2013; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Antenes (Electrònica); Antenes i agrupacions d'antenes; Antenna arrays; Antenna radiation patterns; Antennas; Applied sciences; Arrays; Bandwidth; Beam steering; Enginyeria de la telecomunicació; Exact sciences and technology; Full-wave analysis; Gain; Linear antenna array; Linear antenna arrays; Radiocommunications; Radiocomunicació i exploració electromagnètica; Reconfigurable antenna array; Switching and signalling; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Àrees temàtiques de la UPC; Rectilinear polarization; Prototype; Circular polarization; Beam-steering; Printed antenna; Aperture coupling; Switching; Phase shifter; Optimization; linear antenna array; Beam steering; reconfigurable antenna array; Linear combination; Parasitic component; full-wave analysis; Reconfigurable architectures; Linear antenna arrays; Antenna array
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2012.2234073

A parasitic layer-based multifunctional reconfigurable antenna array (MRAA) formed by the linear combination of four (4 × 1) identical multifunctional reconfigurable antenna (MRA) elements is presented. Each MRA produces eight modes of operation corresponding to three steerable beam directions (θ xz =-30 ° , 0 ° , 30 ° ) with linear and circular polarizations in x - z plane and another two steerable beam directions (θ yz =-30 ° , 30 ° ) in y - z plane with linear polarization. An individual MRA consists of an aperture-coupled driven patch antenna with a parasitic layer placed above it. The surface of the parasitic layer has a grid of 4 × 4 electrically-small rectangular-shaped metallic pixels. The adjacent pixels can be connected/disconnected by means of switching resulting in reconfigurability in beam-direction and polarization. A 4 × 1 linear MRAA operating in the ~ 5.4-5.6 GHz is formed by the optimized MRA elements. MRA and MRAA prototypes have been fabricated and measured. The measured and simulated results agree well indicating ~ 13.5 dB realized array gain and ~ 3% common bandwidth. The MRAA presents some advantages as compared to a standard antenna array: MRAA alleviates the scan loss inherit to standard antenna arrays, provides higher gain, does not need phase shifters for beam steering in certain plane, and is capable of polarization reconfigurability.