Don’t Forget to Water Your Antennas! [Editor’s Comments]

Everyone with just a bit of a green thumb will tell you that water can do miracles for a well-maintained lawn. Sometimes, however, water can also do great things for antennas. Please check out the article by Kong et al. focusing on a frequency-selective structure that can be controlled using water channels. The article starts with an introduction that reviews the concept of frequency-selective surfaces. Then it turns to the new design concept, providing both analytic and numerical evidence in support of the new idea. Finally, the contribution is enriched with experimental results confirming the performance of the technology, showing its practical interest. This issue of
IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine
also features many other interesting articles. Surender et al. presents a nice review of rectennas for applications in wireless technologies. The work starts with a rich bibliographic analysis. It then reviews the primary elements of a rectenna system, examining the main solutions available in literature. Finally, attention is turned to applications, with a detailed list of relevant scenarios analyzed in large detail. The article by Notaros
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is an excellent review of polarimetric weather radars. The article starts by illustrating the principles of radar polarimetry, then it proceeds with technical analyses of specific devices, and finally the contribution turns to applications, showing the data richness that can be provided by polarimetry and its applicability to weather analysis and forecasts. Finally, the article by Loghmannia and Manteghi presents a broadband strategy for small-antenna matching by an amplifier. After a bibliographic review and a section summarizing the relevant background material, the article reviews the principles of broadband parametric matching and presents an antenna design enriched with validating simulations. Finally, a prototype with experimental validations is presented showing achievable performance of the technology.