New Class of Antenna Array With a Reconfigurable Element Factor

• NCJ Number: 249130
• Journal: IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation Volume: 61 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2013 Pages: 1947-1955
• Author(s): Z. Li; D. Rodrigo; L. Jofre; B. A. Cetiner
• Date Published: April 2013
• Length: 9 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2009-SQ-B9-K005
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Report (Technical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored)
• Award: NEMS Integrated Reconfigurable Antenna operating at 150, 400, 700, 800, and 4900 MHz bands for Interoperable Public Safety Communications

Annotation

This article reports the development of a multifunctional reconfigurable antenna array (MRAA) formed by the linear combination of four (4 ~ 1) identical multifunctional reconfigurable antenna (MRA) elements.

Abstract

Each MRA produces eight modes of operation corresponding to three steerable beam directions (ƒÆxz=-30‹, 0‹, 30‹) with linear and circular polarizations in x-z plane and another two steerable beam directions (ƒÆyz=-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 that results 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 percent bandwidth. The MRAA presents some advantages as compared to a standard antenna array: MRAA alleviates the scan loss inherent to standard antenna arrays, provides higher gain, does not need phase shifters for beam steering in certain plane, and is capable of polarization reconfigurability. (Publisher abstract modified)