A beam switching antenna with gain enhancement

A high-gain beam switching antenna based on frequency selective surfaces (FSS) operating at 5.2 GHz is presented. In this design, a monopole is used as radiating source and surrounded by four columns of FSS screens and four metallic sheets. The FSS unit cell comprises two metallic crosses and a pin diode embedded between them. The transmission characteristics of the FSS unit cell are investigated when the state of the pin diode is ON and OFF. By changing the states of the pin diodes in the FSS screens, beam switching can be achieved at 5.2 GHz. The metallic sheets are used to improve the gain of the antenna. Simulation results show the gain of the beam switching antenna with metallic sheets has been enhanced 7.2 dB compared to that without metallic sheets.