Design and analysis of reconfigurable antennas for WiMAX applications

In this paper, the design of a pattern reconfigurable antenna for applications that operate in the WiMAX frequency band between 2.5 - 2.7 GHz is presented. The proposed antenna system consists of an array of two reconfigurable microstrip dipoles, whose active elements can be reconfigured in length using PIN diode switches. The setting of the different switches results in different geometries of the antenna and, consequently, different levels of inter-element mutual coupling and array far-field radiation patterns. The characteristics of the antenna parameters and patterns is analyzed. And, through experimental field testing, the performance of the proposed antenna array is evaluated based on the received Carrier to Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (CINR) as a metric.