Frequency tunable and circular polarization switchable antenna using dual polarized active artificial ground structure

This paper presents a frequency and polarization reconfigurable circular polarized (CP) antenna using active artificial ground (AG) structure. The active AG structure offers independent and symmetrical tuning capability of the reflection phases for dual polarized incident waves. By combining the AG structure with a wideband coplanar waveguide fed monopole antenna, and tuning the capacitances of the varactor diodes on the AG structure, CP wave is dynamically realized at any desired frequency over a wide band in the 1.15-1.60GHz range. At each frequency, the CP state is switchable between left hand CP and right hand CP, by simply swapping the capacitances of varactors controlling the reflection phases of the two orthogonal polarized waves. The antenna covers the frequencies of all operational and in-preparation satellite navigation systems, including GPS, GLONASS, Beidou and Galileo.