Numerical Design and Experimental Characterization of Reconfigurable Leaky Wave Plasma Antenna

This paper presents the design, development and characterization of a leaky wave plasma antenna at 2.45 GHz which has potential application in military Wi-Fi, in areas where a continuous change in frequency is required. The design of the cylindrical plasma antenna is optimized by varying the plasma tube and ground cylinder dimensions to achieve better impedance matching (S11) of the antenna. Furthermore, the axial length of the plasma generated inside the tube is directly proportional to the input excitation power, which also determines the plasma resonant frequency, making it possible to fine-tune the resonant frequency. The novelty of our work lies in two key achievements that surpass previously reported results. First, our designed antenna achieves an enhanced directivity of 4.31 dBi, coupled with a broad bandwidth of 441 MHz at 2.45 GHz. This represents a substantial improvement over prior designs. Second, and most notably, the antenna attains a high radiation efficiency of 73.8%, a benchmark not reached in earlier studies. These advancements underscore significant contributions to the field of plasma antenna technology. The designed plasma antenna is fabricated and characterized experimentally to determine its resonant frequency and scattering parameters. A 10 KHz AC power supply is used for plasma generation inside the tube. The experimental results obtained are consistent with the simulation results.