Wideband Polarization-Agile Planar Microstrip Patch Array Antenna

A planar polarization-agile printed antenna consisting of four edge-fed stacked patches suitably connected to a central aperture-coupled stacked patch to form a dice-five-like array configuration is presented. The excitation is dispensed to the whole array through the element at the centre, which is directly coupled to a pair of microstrip lines by a cross-shaped aperture. As a result, polarization agility operation can be easily achieved by using a single phase-shift circuit to deliver appropriate input signals at the antenna ports. The design concept is described and the simulation results obtained by the method of moments (MoM) are discussed