Compact beam‐reconfigurable feed for large aperture antennas

Abstract

This study presents a novel compact beam‐reconfigurable horn antenna using a fully operational MEMS‐tuned partially reflective surface (PRS). Two symmetric MEMS capacitive switches across a slot on a single layer patch PRS tune its reflection and enable the dynamic reconfiguration of the horn pattern. The authors explore the potential of this PRS in two different applications: beamwidth and beam‐shape reconfiguration. Furthermore, a novel in‐house process for monolithic fabrication of the MEMS‐integrated full PRS and a dedicated DC bias network is developed and analysed. The proposed structure can be used as the feed of a reflector, reflectarray or transmittarray to control the aperture illumination and allow beam‐reconfiguration.

Micro-fabrication considerations for MEMS-based reconfigurable antenna apertures: with emphasis on DC bias network

“…The simulation/measurement of the reconfigurable radiation pattern of the MEMS-tuned antenna is shown in figure 9. We have elaborated on the antenna design in [23]. For proper antenna operation at Ku-band, the unit cell patch sizes are optimized to: L1 = 4.5, L2 = 5.5, l1 = 4.4, l2 = 5.4, w1 = w2 = 0.2, and U = 1 mm (figure 1(c)).…”