Investigation of switching techniques for reconfigurable multiband planar antennas

This paper discusses the design of a dual band planar antenna, able to generate omnidirectional and directional radiation patterns. The antenna employs RF switching devices to select microstrip elements. Qualitative analysis of isolation and insertion loss is performed for three possible switching solutions. Specifically, using commercially available devices, an analysis is conducted for the insertion loss and isolation characteristics on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi bands. The best resulting strategy is applied to the proposed multiband reconfigurable antenna, which is designed to operate at the Wi-Fi center frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5.5 GHz, as defined by the IEEE 802.11 ac standard.