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Optical Control of Reconfigurable Antennas and Application to a Novel Pattern-Reconfigurable Planar Design
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Optical Control of Reconfigurable Antennas and Application to a Novel Pattern-Reconfigurable Planar Design

Damiano Patron, Afshin S Daryoush and Kapil R Dandekar
Journal of lightwave technology, v 32(20), pp 3394-3402
15 Oct 2014

Abstract

Radio frequency PIN photodiodes Optical switches Microstrip Phototransistors Optical control Antenna radiation patterns
This paper discusses techniques for optical control of reconfigurable antennas using commercially available devices. These techniques are applied to a pattern-reconfigurable planar antenna that integrates optical control circuitry to switch folded microstrip radiators arranged in each of the quadrants. By switching between the microstrip elements, the designed antenna can generate a single omnidirectional or four directional patterns, maintaining good impedance matching within the 2.4 GHz WiFi band. We investigated two possible strategies for optical control: 1) p-i-n photodectors based switching, and 2) phototransistor controlled RF p-i-n diodes switches. Extended numerical and experimental analysis was carried out for the latter technique, discussing advantages and limitations when employed as RF switch on reconfigurable antennas. Finally, measurements of input impedance and radiation patterns were collected to validate the proposed optically controlled antenna design and compared to standard electronic control.

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Web of Science research areas
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Optics
Telecommunications
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