Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna
A continuously steerable patch antenna employing liquid metal is presented. The proposed antenna employs a novel tunable ground plane together with parasitic steering to steer the direction of the main beam. The tunable ground plane consists of a permanent region, made from copper, and two tunable r...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IEEE
2023-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10012356/ |
| _version_ | 1826938468501028864 |
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| author | Zhishu Qu Yihua Zhou Shaker Alkaraki James R. Kelly Yue Gao |
| author_facet | Zhishu Qu Yihua Zhou Shaker Alkaraki James R. Kelly Yue Gao |
| author_sort | Zhishu Qu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | A continuously steerable patch antenna employing liquid metal is presented. The proposed antenna employs a novel tunable ground plane together with parasitic steering to steer the direction of the main beam. The tunable ground plane consists of a permanent region, made from copper, and two tunable regions formed from liquid metal. The liquid metal channels were fabricated using 3D printing technology. By continuously injecting liquid metal into channels, the proposed patch antenna can provide continuous beam steering from −30° to +30° in the elevation plane, while achieving low side lobe level performance combined with low scan loss performance. Such an approach has never been tried before and it is only possible due to the unique properties of liquid metal. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that tunable ground plane has been used for a patch antenna to achieve continuous beam steering. The proposed antenna operates at 5.3 GHz. The antenna is fabricated and measured. Measurement results agree well with the simulation results and validate the effectiveness of the proposed beam steering technique. The proposed antenna has a measured gain of 8.1 dBi at 5.3 GHz and wide bandwidth performance. The tunable ground technique proposed in this work will find numerous applications within future wireless communications systems. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T09:14:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9b862be85a7541ea8b0c795f359da093 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-17T18:57:24Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-9b862be85a7541ea8b0c795f359da0932024-12-11T00:03:54ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362023-01-01114095410410.1109/ACCESS.2023.323559710012356Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch AntennaZhishu Qu0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6671-2647Yihua Zhou1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1506-7964Shaker Alkaraki2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0517-1226James R. Kelly3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1528-6887Yue Gao4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6502-9910Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Department, Queen Mary University of London, London, U.K.Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Department, Queen Mary University of London, London, U.K.Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Department, Queen Mary University of London, London, U.K.Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Department, Queen Mary University of London, London, U.K.School of Computer Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, ChinaA continuously steerable patch antenna employing liquid metal is presented. The proposed antenna employs a novel tunable ground plane together with parasitic steering to steer the direction of the main beam. The tunable ground plane consists of a permanent region, made from copper, and two tunable regions formed from liquid metal. The liquid metal channels were fabricated using 3D printing technology. By continuously injecting liquid metal into channels, the proposed patch antenna can provide continuous beam steering from −30° to +30° in the elevation plane, while achieving low side lobe level performance combined with low scan loss performance. Such an approach has never been tried before and it is only possible due to the unique properties of liquid metal. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that tunable ground plane has been used for a patch antenna to achieve continuous beam steering. The proposed antenna operates at 5.3 GHz. The antenna is fabricated and measured. Measurement results agree well with the simulation results and validate the effectiveness of the proposed beam steering technique. The proposed antenna has a measured gain of 8.1 dBi at 5.3 GHz and wide bandwidth performance. The tunable ground technique proposed in this work will find numerous applications within future wireless communications systems.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10012356/3-D printingbeam scanningcontinuous beam steeringliquid metalmicrostrip patch antennapattern reconfiguration |
| spellingShingle | Zhishu Qu Yihua Zhou Shaker Alkaraki James R. Kelly Yue Gao Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna IEEE Access 3-D printing beam scanning continuous beam steering liquid metal microstrip patch antenna pattern reconfiguration |
| title | Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna |
| title_full | Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna |
| title_fullStr | Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna |
| title_full_unstemmed | Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna |
| title_short | Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna |
| title_sort | continuous beam steering realized by tunable ground in a patch antenna |
| topic | 3-D printing beam scanning continuous beam steering liquid metal microstrip patch antenna pattern reconfiguration |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10012356/ |
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