Reconfigurable and Frequency Tunable Inverted F Antenna Based on Plasma Technology

A new frequency-tunable antenna based on plasma medium is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna relies on the excitation of a horizontal plasma column which is supported by two thin metallic conductors, thus can be considered as an inverted F antenna. In order to demonstrate the radiation characteristics of the plasma IFA, a prototype of the antenna is realized and its measured performance is presented. Preliminary measurement results exhibit antenna resonance and radiation gain in the VHF frequency band.