Recent antenna developments using metallized foam

Abstract

Today antennas appear to be a key component in radio systems. They often need new requirements such as beam tilting, multibeam, large bandwidth. In fact many structures are still bulky, mostly realized with pieces of metal supported by several insulators; only the printed antenna technology avoids this weight due to oversized pieces of metal but has limitation in bandwidth and is still planar. The technology of metallized foam developed by ADVANTEN offers a new approach to the design of filar, flat and 3D antennas. Thanks to this technology new designs of antennas have been possible offering both low weight, possible shaping and development of artificial materials such as electromagnetic band gap which can be electronically controlled. Various examples of antennas are presented here to illustrate some innovative developments.