Polarization Reconfigurable and Beam-Switchable Array Antenna Using Switchable Feed Network

A novel array antenna with reconfigurable polarizations and radiation pattern agility is presented in this paper. The digital-controllable array antenna has the functional capabilities of reconfigurable polarization and switching beam, which consists of cavity-backed antenna element based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technique, parasitic patch array, power dividers and phase shifters. Polarization modes and radiation patterns can be dynamically controlled by means of Microcontroller Unit (MCU) with the different feeding ports and phase difference. To validate this proposal, the performance of the fabricated device was measured at the operating frequency of 5.4 GHz. Measured results indicate that the 10 dB impedance bandwidths and 3 dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidths cover from 5.25 to 5.6 GHz, and the measured gains range from 7.9 to 10.1 dBic. The experimentation and simulation verify that the proposed antenna can achieve two polarization states and five radiation beams of each polarization state, which indicate a good performance of the polarization reconfigurable and beam switching antenna array.