An Electrically Controlled Pattern- and Polarization-Reconfigurable Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna

Abstract

A pattern- and polarization-reconfigurable dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is presented. It deploys a conventional cylindrical dielectric resonator (DR) with a new switchable feeding network. The feeding network has four slots that are etched in the ground. By tuning the phase distributions in these slots, three DR modes (the TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">01δ</sub> and two degenerated HEM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">113</sub> modes) are excited. The former has an omnidirectional radiation pattern, whereas the latter two have boresight patterns with orthogonal polarizations ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</i> - and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">y</i> -polarization). By tuning the height-to-radius ratio, these modes can be designed to operate at the same frequency, thus enabling both the pattern and polarization reconfigurability. A prototype of the reconfigurable DRA working in 2.4 GHz is fabricated and measured to verify ideas. Reasonable agreement between measurements and simulations is obtained. Our design provides both pattern and polarization reconfigurability, with good efficiency in the band of interest.