The Labview code also controls the capacitance of the varactors of the FSS through a reverse bias voltage provided by the analogue output of the DAQ card. The output of the latter can reach a maximum voltage of 10 V; hence, an operational amplifier circuit is employed to increase the output voltage to 15 V [see amplifier 1, Fig. 1(b)].The Labview code operates as follows: (i) it increases the FSS varactor voltage by small incremental steps (0.1 V); (ii) for every voltage value, the rectified transmitted signal is recorded; and (iii) the code sets the reverse bias voltage to the value that corresponds to the smallest rectified signal.Following a thorough calibration using a vector network analyser, the insertion loss of the waveguide setup was measured with and without the FSS panel. These measurements, shown in Figure 2(b), are required in order to determine whether the waveguide setup attenuation influences the smart FSS performance. The results demonstrate that the waveguide attenuation is approximately constant over the frequency range of interest.The rectifier's output voltage was then examined for various incident signal powers and frequencies, as it may also influence the smart FSS performance. The results are shown in Figure 2(c) for two input signal levels: Ϫ5 dBm and Ϫ20 dBm. There is a variation in the output voltage; however, it does not to affect the smart FSS performance. Figure 3 plots the transmitted signal power versus frequency for three different varactor reverse bias values: 0, 6.33, and 15 V. The plotted results were obtained using a spectrum analyser. The 6.33-V value was determined by the Labview code. Figure 3 confirms that this value is very near the optimum reverse biasvoltage value that most effectively blocks the incident 2.35-GHz signal.
CONCLUSIONThis paper has provided proof of the concept that a smart FSS can be implemented through the use of a tunable frequency-selective surface and a PC.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was funded by