The annular ring slot antenna (ARSA) has been one of the most sought-after designs in reconfigurable antennas due to its ease of achieving circular polarization (CP) radiation,. The antenna in is a single-layer reconfigurable antenna with three polarizations, but its size is up to 100 mm × 100 mm. POLARIZATION RECONFIGURABLE SLOT ANTENNA FOR INDOOR MIMO SYSTEM Yue Li, Zhijun Zhang, Jianfeng Zheng, and Zhenghe Feng State Key Lab of Microwave and Communications, Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China; Corresponding author: zjzh@tsinghua.edu.cn Received 24 August 2010.

Reconfigurability is a vital feature of future agile millimeter wave systems for sensing, imaging, wireless, and satellite communications. Reconfigurable antennas are an integral part of such systems as they can control polarization, frequency, radiation pattern, or characteristic impedance.

Paraffin-Based Reconfigurable Components at Millimeter Wave

Figure 1: Multiphysiscs simulation results for Von Mises stress and temperature distribution of the paraffin PCM actuator for input voltage of 2 V.

The main goal of this project is to design low-loss millimeter wave (mmW) RF components using novel materials such as paraffin. Alkane or paraffin is an organic phase change material (PCM) that exhibits low a dielectric loss, (tan⁡δ=6.6E-4 at 110 GHz), with a relative dielectric constant of 2.26. Paraffin is also a mechanical PCM that undergoes a 15% volumetric change through its solid-liquid phase change.

Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Mounts

Due to its unique electrical and mechanical properties, paraffin PCM variable capacitors are very attractive for designing reconfigurable antennas and distributed loaded line phase shifters at mmW band.

Figure 2: Micrograph of the fabricated reconfigurable antenna.

In our group, we have developed a continuously reconfigurable antenna at 100 GHz by monolithically integrating the paraffin PCM capacitors with a slot antenna. Designed antenna has a reconfiguration range of 96–102.2 GHz with a maximum gain of 3 dBi. (Figures 1—2)

In addition, we have also developed a distributed loaded line phase shifter based on a new class of electro-thermally actuated RF MEMS devices using paraffin PCM. Designed phase shifter has a figure-of merit of 71.8°/dB achieved while maintaining a return loss more than 12 dB.

Polarization Reconfigurable U-slot Patch Antenna

Figure 3: Multiphysiscs simulation results for Von Mises stress and temperature distribution of the paraffin PCM actuator for input voltage of 5 V.

Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Tuner

Designed phase shifter has a maximum insertion loss of 5 dB for a 360° of phase shift. (Figure 3)

© Prof. Nima Ghalichechian's Group

Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Booster

Related Papers

B. Ghassemiparvin and N. Ghalichechian, “Reconfigurable Millimeter-wave Antennas using Paraffin Phase Change Materials,” European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), Davos, Switzerland, 10-15 Apr, 2016. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/EuCAP.2016.7481595 (Download PDF)

B. Ghassemiparvin and N. Ghalichechian, “Novel Paraffin-Based 100-GHz Variable Capacitors for Reconfigurable Antennas,' European Conference on Antennas and Propogation (EuCAP), Paris, France, 19-24 Mar, 2017.DOI:https://doi.org/10.23919/EuCAP.2017.7928379(Download PDF)

Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Signal Booster

B. Ghassemiparvin and N. Ghalichechian, 'W-Band True-Time Delay Phase Shifters Using Paraffin Microactuators,' European Conference on Antennas and Propogation (EuCAP), London, UK, 9-13 Apr, 2018.