Reconfigurable Reflectarrays and Array Lenses for Dynamic Antenna Beam Control: A Review

Advances in reflectarrays and array lenses with electronic beam-forming capabilities are enabling a host of new possibilities for these high-performance, low-cost antenna architectures. This paper reviews enabling technologies and topologies of reconfigurable reflectarray and array lens designs, and surveys a range of experimental implementations and achievements that have been made in this area in recent years. The paper describes the fundamental design approaches employed in realizing reconfigurable designs, and explores advanced capabilities of these nascent architectures, such as multi-band operation, polarization manipulation, frequency agility, and amplification. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing future challenges and possibilities for these antennas.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Frequency reconfigurable antennas for cognitive radio applications: a review

Wireless communication systems undergo tremendous growth these days and devices able to operate in a number of frequencybandsarehighlydemanded. Reconfiguration in antenna characteristic striggered the evolution of antennas that can workin multiple frequency, pattern or polarization environment.The frequency reconfigurable antennas thuse mergedarewell suited in Cognitive Radios which take part in the effective utilization of unused bands of frequencies by continuously interacting with the RF environment. Thus, Cognitive Radios enhancetheutilization of frequency spectrum and establish reliable communication. The most recent research works carried out in the arena of Frequency Reconfigurable Antennas for Cognitive Radio applications are reviewed and summed up in this paper to present the attributes and categorization. Four techniques adopted to attain frequency reconfiguration are extensively compared in this paper to find the advantages and constraints of each methodology. The applications of the works reviewed here are not only limited to Cognitive radios, but extended to a number of wireless communication services like, WLAN, WiMAX, et

A reconfigurable dual port antenna system for underlay/interweave cognitive radio

An antenna system that is reconfigurable in frequency is presented in this paper as a novel dual port design that serves both undelay and interweave cognitive radio. This 25×40×0.8 mm3 system is composed of two wide slot antennas: the first is designed as an ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna with controllable band rejection capabilities, while the second antenna is reconfigurable for communication purposes. Three slots are etched into the patch of the UWB antenna to obtain band notching in wireless local area network/Xband/International Telecommunication Union bands (WLAN/Xband/ITU) bands which can be controlled by a positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) diode across each slot. The configuration states of these three diodes are all useable that produces seven band rejection modes plus the UWB operation mode. The second antenna is configured by five PIN diodes to operate either in Cband, WLAN or Xband regions which results in three interweave modes when setting the first antenna for UWB sensing. The design is simulated by computer simulation technology (CST) v.10. S21 results shows good isolation while input reflection coefficient and realized gain results prove system’s scanning, filtering and communication capabilities. This system is new that it gathers the undelay/interweave operation in a single design and when considering its large number of operation modes it looks adequate for many cognitive radio applications

Reconfigurable pixel antennas for communications

The explosive growth of wireless communications has brought new requirements in terms of compactness, mobility and multi-functionality that pushes antenna research. In this context, recon gurable antennas have gained a lot of attention due to their ability to adjust dynamically their frequency and radiation properties, providing multiple functionalities and being able to adapt themselves to a changing environment. A pixel antenna is a particular type of recon gurable antenna composed of a grid of metallic patches interconnected by RF-switches which can dynamically reshape its active surface. This capability provides pixel antennas with a recon guration level much higher than in other recon gurable architectures. Despite the outstanding recon guration capabilities of pixel antennas, there are important practical issues related to the performance-complexity balance that must be addressed before they can be implemented in commercial systems. This doctoral work focuses on the minimization of the pixel antenna complexity while maximizing its recon guration capabilities, contributing to the development of pixel antennas from a conceptual structure towards a practical recon gurable antenna architecture. First, the conceptualization of novel pixel geometries is addressed. It is shown that antenna complexity can be signi cantly reduced by using multiple-sized pixels. This multi-size technique allows to design pixel antennas with a number of switches one order of magnitude lower than in common pixel structures, while preserving high multiparameter recon gurability. A new conceptual architecture where the pixel surface acts as a parasitic layer is also proposed. The parasitic nature of the pixel layer leads to important advantages regarding the switch biasing and integration possibilities. Secondly, new pixel recon guration technologies are explored. After investigating the capabilities of semiconductors and RF-MEMS switches, micro uidic technology is proposed as a new technology to create and remove liquid metal pixels rather than interconnecting them. Thirdly, the full multi-parameter recon guration capabilities of pixel antennas is explored, which contrasts with the partial explorations available in the literature. The maximum achievable recon guration ranges (frequency range, beam-steering angular range and polarization modes) as well as the linkage between the di erent parameter under recon guration are studied. Finally, the performance of recon gurable antennas in beam-steering applications is analyzed. Figures-of-merit are derived to quantify radiation pattern recon gurability, enabling the evaluation of the performance of recon gurable antennas, pixel antennas and recon guration algorithms

Design and Analysis of Frequency Reconfigurable Micro strip Antennas

The goal of this thesis is to design and analyse the frequency reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna which are mainly the combination of filters and antennas called filtering antennas (filtennas). The increasing demand for high data rate and new wireless communication has led to the development of multifunctional devices including antennas and radio frequency (RF) front ends. The novel solution is to design antennas which has multiband, multimode, low profile, low cost and easy to integrate with portable devices. In this thesis three different frequency reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna has been proposed for cognitive radio system. The design and simulation of the proposed antennas are d one in CST (computer simulation technology) microwave simulation software. The first design is single port frequency agile antenna for overlay cognitive radio. When all the PIN diodes are in ON state, it is UWB and used to sense the entire spectrum and by selectively changing the PIN diode states five different reconfigurable cases occurs which is used for communication. Thereflection coefficient curve of UWB antenna shows bandwidth from 3.1 GHz to 9.8 GHz and reconfigurable antenna resonate at 6.7 GHz, 5.33 Hz, 5.73 GHz, 7.04 GHz, 6.33 GHz and 9.45 GHz. The second antenna proposed is dual port microstrip patch for cognitive radio system. This design is used for overlay cognitive radio in which one antenna is for sensing and other for communication. Sensing and communication can be done simultaneously and tuning in reconfigurable antenna can be done continuously. UWB antenna bandwidth is from 3.4 GHz to 13.2 GHz and the reconfigurable antenna is dual and triple band resonating frequency according to the biasing of varactor. The radiation pattern obtained in both cases are almost omnidirectional which is good for mobile application and sensing antenna. The third design is proposed for underlay cognitive radio system in which UWB antenna is used which radiate at very low power. The UWB antenna resonates from 2.8 GHz to 13.4 GHz. The filter is then added to this antenna as notch reconfigurable and this can be used to communicate over long distance without interference with primary used. The notches depends on states of PIN diodes, the frequency which are rejected are 5 GHz, 5.7 GHz, 6.45 GHz, 7.5 GHz, 9 GHz. The fourth proposed design is planar inverted F antenna (PIFA) for mobile devices. Currently cellular phones are using more than one services, so many antennas are needed. In the proposed design two varactor diodes has been used for tuning of operating frequency so that one antenna can replace many antennas for different wireless services like WIFI, WIMAX, GPS,WLAN , WiBro etc. .The simulated refection coefficient of this antenna shows dual band and triple band from 2 GHz to 5.5 GHz at different varactor diode biasing states