AN ACTIVE RING SLOT WITH RF MEMS SWITCHABLE RADIAL STUBS FOR RECONFIGURABLE FREQUENCY SELECTIVE SURFACE APPLICATIONS

An active ring slot resonator loaded by switchable radial stubs is investigated. It is shown that this element can be used as the unit cell of a switchable reconfigurable frequency selective surface (RFSS). Equivalent circuit and full-wave mathematical models are obtained to evaluate the reflection characteristics of the RFSS based on this element. The possibility to obtain different resonant transmission frequencies is discussed. The mathematical model developed is used to design an X band RFSS capable of obtaining resonant frequencies at 9.65, 10.28, 10.83 and 12.05 GHz. Commercially available RF MEMS switches are used to evaluate the effect of the off-state capacitances over the response of the periodic structure. To validate the numerical simulation results, different active and passive diaphragms were designed, fabricated, and tested using the waveguide simulator. A good agreement between numerical and measured results was found.