Metamaterial-based reconfigurable antenna

In this paper, a metamaterial-based reconfigurable antenna is designed. The design consists of a conventional square (4.5 × 4.5 mm) patch antenna and is surrounded by a controllable meta-surface. This surface will have metallic or dielectric behaviour, which leads to an effect on resonance frequency. The dimensions of the unit cell are smaller than the tenth of free-space wavelength. The cross-shaped metamaterials unit cell was chosen due to several reasons; it has a simple design, and its response can be electronically controlled to switch between metallic and dielectric behaviour of the meta-surface. Its bi-dimensional structure allows it to print it on the same substrate of patch antenna. The antenna offers 20 resonant frequencies between 14.1 GHz and 20.8 GHz. The antenna presents a gain of 7.8 dB and a bandwidth slightly lower than 2%. The design can be useful for several wireless applications, e.g., for radar systems to overcome stealth techniques. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.