A cylindrical reconfigurable antenna technology with full hemispherical coverage

Reconfigurable antennas using a switched element architecture have the ability to electronically change their characteristics, adapting their band of operation, gain pattern, and polarization to meet the requirements of the system. Two cylindrical reconfigurable antennas are presented which tune over a wide band and steer over a wide field of view: a 133 mm diameter antenna providing a realized gain (gain with mismatch) better than a dipole from 1 GHz to 3 GHz and a 75 mm diameter antenna demonstrating steering about a full hemisphere. These antennas are constructed using a modular approach out of a series of identical boards which act as antenna pixels — electrically small segments that can be turned on and off to affect the antenna pattern. Each pixel contains RF switches and contacts for control wires on each side of the board. By fragmenting the reconfigurable antenna into individual pixel boards, one can construct antennas of arbitrary size and shape, allowing implementations to be designed for more gain or for a smaller footprint. Additionally, we show a single antenna's ability to achieve distinct configurations that each maintain gain in a specified direction while forming a null at a different offset angle.