A compact pattern reconfigurable antenna design for handheld wireless devices

A new topology for designing a compact pattern reconfigurable antenna is proposed in this paper. The antenna consists of a right-angled slot, two diodes, two metal patches, control circuits and a feeding microstrip line. To reconfigure the slot, diodes are used to create short circuits across the slot. As one of the diodes is enabled, the antenna behaves like a quarter-wavelength slot antenna. Since the direction of working slot depends on the status of diodes, the antenna radiation patterns can be configured easily. To prove the concept, a 2.4 GHz antenna for WLAN applications is designed, whose size is comparable to a traditional WLAN antenna. The measured and simulated results agree well. Due to the compactness feature, such a design will be a promising solution for handheld wireless devices.