Partially reflective surface antenna with dynamic beamwidth control

The dynamic control of the beamwidth of a partially reflective surface (PRS) antenna is reported for the first time. First, a design methodology is proposed by revisiting the PRS antenna theory from the perspective of its reconfigurable beamwidth operation, which is achieved by the control of the reflection magnitude of the PRS. The proposed PRS design only requires one varactor diode per PRS unit cell and a common control voltage for the entire structure. Finally, a fully operational reconfigurable antenna has been fabricated and measured, successfully demonstrating the targeted capability

An Insight into Creeping Electromagnetic Waves around the Human Body

The electromagnetic wave propagation around human body torso is modelled by considering elementary electric and magnetic dipoles over an infinite muscle-equivalent cylinder. The poles in the spectral domain Green’s function with smallest imaginary part are found to correspond to creeping wave propagation coefficients which predict the general trend in propagation around human body. In addition, it was found that axial magnetic field component is crucial for communication via creeping waves since it generates modes with smaller field decay compared to axial electric field. The developed model may thus serve as a practical guideline in design of on-body wearable antennas. The theoretical considerations are verified with simulations and measurements on the prototype of PIFA antenna placed on the human body