Wideband polarization and pattern reconfigurable antennas

The research on reconfigurable antennas becomes more and more popular recently along with the rapid development of modern wireless communication systems. Reconfigurable antennas will facilitate to increase the wireless channel capacity, to avoid polarization mismatch, and to enhance the radiation coverage. This paper will present four reconfigurable antenna designs that realize the wideband polarization and pattern reconfigurability. First, a wideband multi-linear polarizations reconfigurable antenna is introduced, that is based on the L-shaped probe fed patch radiators. Multiple L-shaped structure is adopted to realize the reconfigurability. Second, based on the same methodology, a wideband circular polarization reconfigurable antenna is developed via an output switchable power divider. Expect for the polarization reconfigurable antennas, this paper also presents two pattern reconfigurable antennas that achieve switchable conical-beam and broadside radiations. The former one utilizes the combination of a wideband monopolar patch antenna and an L-probe fed patch antenna. The latter one adopts an annular-slotted patch antenna fed by an excitation reconfigurable feed network. All the antennas discussed above exhibit wide bandwidth, low profile, stable realized gain and desired reconfigurability.