A wideband beam switching antenna using RF MEMS switches

Author

Schaffner, J.H. ; Sievenpiper, D.F. ; Loo, R.Y. ; Lee, J.J. ; Livingston, S.W.

Author_Institution

Hughes Res. Labs., Malibu, CA, USA

Volume

3

fYear

2001

Firstpage

658

Abstract

Reconfigurable aperture antenna technology has been enabled by the advent of RF MEMS switches. Typical measured insertion losses of less than 0.25 dB up to 40 GHz with superb broadband isolation means that reconfiguration of the antenna for multi-band operation can now occur with a few MEMS switches rather than multiple PIN diode or FET switch circuits. In this paper, we describe a reflectarray antenna approach that can perform true time delay beam steering by using cascaded RF MEMS switches/coplanar strip transmission line sections. Measured RF MEMS switch characteristics in coplanar strip transmission lines are presented and the modeled reflected phase of five cascaded switch/transmission line sections is presented.

Keywords

antenna arrays; aperture antennas; beam steering; coplanar transmission lines; micromechanical devices; microwave switches; millimetre wave devices; multifrequency antennas; reflector antennas; RF MEMS switches; beam switching antenna; cascaded sections; coplanar strip transmission line; multi-band antenna; reconfigurable aperture antenna; reflectarray antenna; reflected phase; true time delay beam steering; wideband antenna; Antenna measurements; Aperture antennas; Broadband antennas; Coplanar transmission lines; Distributed parameter circuits; Insertion loss; Isolation technology; Loss measurement; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Switches;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, 2001. IEEE

Conference_Location

Boston, MA, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7070-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/APS.2001.960182

Filename

960182