Radiation Beam Steering Using A Microfluidically Reconfigurable Metasurface Superstrate

A fluidically reconfigurable metasurface (MSF) is presented in this paper in order to achieve radiation beam steering with enhanced gain. A simple square ring resonator structure is used as the unit cell for the superstrate layer and a probe-fed microstrip patch antenna is used as the radiator. The microfluidic channels are implemented inside a 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) substrate and gallium liquid metal alloy (LMA) is injected in the microfluidic channels to switch the radiation pattern in the elevation plane from broadside to ± 20°. The proposed metasurface antenna exhibits a constant fractional bandwidth greater than 7.5% in all states of reconfiguration. The maximum realized gain remains greater than 7.2 dBi. The simulated gain and bandwidth of the proposed structure are greater than those of a conventional patch antenna, making it a good candidate for certain 5G, cellular base station, and satellite communication applications.