A novel beam switching antenna using RF switches

A novel beam switching antenna design is proposed in this work. This antenna uses a dipole as the fed and a cylindrical metal enclosure with a stack of circular slits is put around dipole. An array of RF switches made of pin diodes are placed across the slits. The antenna beam can be adjusted to the desired direction by changing on-off states of the switches, which in turn reconfigures the slot array orientation. The beam switching feature of the proposed antenna makes it an attractive low cost alternative to wireless communication systems that need to implement smart antennas in their base stations.