Investigation of a Flexible Reconfigurable Antenna using Liquid Crystal

A flexible frequency reconfigurable antenna using liquid crystal (LC) is investigated. The antenna consists of a patch with silver ink printed on inner surfaces of two Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films to form the radiating element and the ground plane. Three cavities filled with LC molecules are then created between the two silver ink layers. Radiation patterns, gains and efficiencies are also reported with and without a biasing voltage. In addition to the experimental results, simulations for the LC based antenna characterization are also provided. Although the demonstrated example does not meet the requirements for useful applications at 5 GHz range, it provides a proof-of-concept demonstrating the possible use of LC in the design of flexible reconfigurable antennas.