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.

1. Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Mounts
2. Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Tuner
3. Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Booster

Paraffin-Based Reconfigurable Components at Millimeter Wave

Polarization-Reconfigurable Antenna,' IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 1557-1560, 2017. Wong, 'Wideband Circular-Polarization Reconfigurable Antenna With L-Shaped Feeding Probes,' IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 2114-2117, 2017. A simple polarization and beam switching reconfigurable antenna is presented in this paper. The circular patch with annular slot is used as the radiating element.The circular metallic conductor positioned below the substrate with the air dielectric acts as the ground plane for the antenna. 9 Matthias,K.Fries,Mischa Grani And Rudiger Vahdieck, A Reconfigurable Slot Antenna with Switchable Polarization, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, 13(11) Nov 2003. 10 Y.L.Sng, Reconfigurable Patch Antenna For Polarization Diversity, IEEE Transactions on Antenna and Propagation, 56(9),Sept 2008. A reconfigurable polarization antenna includes a microwave dielectric substrate having a ground plane that has a centrally located slot with five conducting patches, four of which form an evenly spaced apart perimeter group with a gap between each and the fifth, centrally positioned conducting patch.

Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Mounts

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.

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.

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

Related Papers

Reconfigurable Polarization Slot Antenna Booster

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)

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.