A compact antenna reconfigurable in the band 1.7GHz - 2.7GHz

This article describes a novel structure that is reconfigured via switches. The switch-reconfigurable antenna is first optimized by means of a genetic algorithm (GA), coupled to a MoM-based EM. After selection of the optimal shape (including switch positions), the optimal switch set states are obtained by exhaustive search. Optimization via GA have received widespread attention recently and have been successfully applied in automated antenna design (F.J. Villegas et al., 2004) when tight specifications and strong constraints are to be satisfied; to our knowledge this is the first attempt to apply GA in the design of reconfigurable structures as done here. This work can be seen as an evolution of the concept outlined in A. Cavallero et al., (2004)