A Compact Pattern- and Polarization-Reconfigurable Dielectric Resonator Antenna

Abstract

In this letter, a compact pattern- and polarization-reconfigurable dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) based on complementary source is proposed. The antenna consists of a dielectric resonator (DR), four metallic rods, and two input ports. The DR operates in ${\text{TE}}_{111}$ mode, acting as a magnetic dipole, while the metallic rods function as electric dipoles, forming different complementary sources. By switching the excited modes of input ports and ON/OFF states of four p-i-n diodes, the antenna generates eight modes. These modes include broadside modes ($\theta =0^{\circ }$) with linear polarization at $\phi =0^{\circ }∕45^{\circ }∕90^{\circ }∕135^{\circ }$, and tilted modes ($\theta =38^{\circ }$) at $\phi =0^{\circ }∕90^{\circ }∕180^{\circ }∕270^{\circ }$, respectively. Thus, the antenna realizes reconfigurable pattern and polarization. A prototype is fabricated and verified. The fabricated antenna features a compact size of $0.39{\lambda }_0\times 0.39{\lambda }_0\times 0.15{\lambda }_0$ (${\lambda }_0$ represents the free-space wavelength at 3.55 GHz). The measured overlapped $\mid S_{11}\mid$ under −10 dB is 3.28–3.84 GHz (15.7%), covering the 5G-N78 band.