A New Class of Antenna Array with a Reconfigurable Element Factor

Z. Li
D. Rodrigo
L. Jofre
Bedri A. Cetiner, Utah State University

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Abstract

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 (Æxz= -30o, 0o, 30o) with linear and circular polarizations in x-z plane and another two steerable beam directions (Æyz= -30o, 30o) 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.