A Dual-Polarized, Direction Diagram Reconfigurable, Liquid Metal Antenna

Abstract

In this paper, we present a dual-polarized, pattern reconfigurable, liquid metal dipole antenna. The proposed design consists of a pair of ±45 • polarized reconfigurable dipole antennas, two vertically placed feeding structures with filtering branches, and a resin frame for injecting liquid metal to adjust the pattern. By introducing a U-shaped structure, a better impedance matching performance is achieved in two bands. The polarization can be switched by injecting liquid metal into different dipole microfluidic channels. By controlling the liquid metal reflector around the magnetic dipole, the reconfigurable pattern of +45 • polarized antenna can be realized at 0 • , 180 • and 90 • on the plane of phi = 90 • , and the reconfigurable pattern of −45 • magnetic dipole antenna can be achieved at 0 • , 90 • and 270 • on the plane of phi = 0 • . The basic antenna operates with linear polarization around 4.8 GHz. The VSWR is less than 1.5. In the radiation pattern of the antenna, the port isolations of the two crossing ports are S 12 and S 21 . S 21 port isolation is more than 35 dB. The antenna has good pattern reconfigurable characteristics, and the simulation results of the antenna indicate good radiation directivity. Moreover, the height of the proposed antenna is 0.0625λ at 4.8 GHz. The good performance of the antenna makes it a candidate for base station systems below 5G sub-6 GHz.