Polarization controllable microstrip antenna using beam lead PIN diodes

A reconfigurable antenna is attractive for wireless communication system. In this paper, a novel polarization controllable microstrip antenna as a kind of reconfigurable antennas is investigated. In order to realize an orthogonal polarization controllable antenna, four switching diodes are mounted on a cross-slot antenna element. The FDTD method is used to simulate the antenna, and the characteristics of this functional antenna are discussed. The characteristics are calculated taking the resistance and capacitance of the diode into account. The calculated results are compared with the measured, and these results agree well. Consequently, the realizability of the polarization controllable antenna is successfully verified.