Gain-enhanced reconfigurable radiation array with mechanically driven system and directive elements

Abstract

In the artificial intelligence-driven modern wireless communication system, antennas are required to be reconfigurable in terms of size according to changing application scenarios. However, conventional antennas with constant phase distributions cannot achieve enhanced gains in different reconfigurable sizes. In this paper, we propose a mechanically reconfigurable radiation array (RRA) based on miniaturized elements and a mechanically reconfigurable system to obtain gain-enhanced antennas in compact and deployed states. A five-element RRA with a phase-reconfigurable center element is designed and analyzed theoretically. The experimental sample has been fabricated, driven by a deployable frame with only one degree of freedom to realize the size and phase distribution reconfiguration simultaneously to validate the enhanced gains of RRA. The proposed RRA can be tessellated into larger arrays to achieve higher gains in other frequency regimes, such as terahertz or photonics applications with nanometer fabrication technology.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

mechanism / reconfigurable radiation array (RRA) / compact state / deployed state / enhanced gain

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61831017, 51825503, and 52035008).

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