MEMS SWITCHED RECONFIGURABLE MULTI-BAND ANTENNA

MEMS SWITCHED RECONFIGURABLE MULTI-BAND ANTENNA

ABSTRACT:

Reconfigurable antennas have the ability to offer new degrees of freedom to many areas of wireless communications. These multi-band antennas are attractive for many military and commercial applications where it is desirable to have a single antenna that can be reconfigured to transmit and or receive on multiple frequency bands. Such antennas are complex electromagnetic structures usually comprising multi-layer planar radiators that are switched using a network of MEMS switches. MEMS – switched reconfigurable multi-band antenna is one that can be dynamically reconfigured within a few microseconds to serve different applications at drastically different frequency bands. The is paper presents the design details for a prototype reconfigurable multi-band antenna using MEMS switches and the experimental and theoretical results from radiation performance characterization for different antenna configurations.

INTRODUCTION:

Antennas for many airborne vehicles such as UAVs, satellites and aircraft are required to satisfy a diverse range of requirements imposed by the radar and communication systems in order to maximize the effectiveness of the earial platform. It is highly desirable to have a single antenna that could be automatically reconfigured to satisfy the frequency band and gain requirements of different applications. In this manner several communications and remote sensing systems could utilize a commonm apeture antenna, resulting in considerable savings in size, weight and cost.

A key enabling technology for the successful development of reconfigurable multi-band antennas is the development of switches with low loss, hig isolation and low bias power requirements. Below approximately 1 GHz, PIN diodes are extremely efficient and are suitable switching elements. Above 1 GHz, photonic switches have been proposed for microwave antenna applications, but have met limited success for reason or the other. Recently micro Electro-mechanical switches have been receiving a lot of attention as potential antenna switching elements. These switches have low actuation voltages and stress-free operation, improving the reliability of the individual array elements and the array as whole.


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