Frequency-Agile, Efficient, Circularly Polarized, Near-Field Resonant Antenna: Designs and Measurements

Ming Chun Tang, Richard W. Ziolkowski

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

A frequency-agile, efficient, circularly polarized (CP), nearfield resonant parasitic (NFRP) antenna is presented. It consists of two orthogonal capacitively loaded loops (CLLs) with similar configurations placed vertically with respect to a finite ground disc and serve as the NFRP elements. They are placed in the near field of two monopoles fed from a single coax feedline. A pair of varactor diodes is incorporated into the NFRP elements to achieve its frequency-agile behavior. The NFRP elements produce nearly complete matching at frequencies much lower than the fundamental modes of the monopoles without any matching circuit. Frequency tunability is demonstrated over a wide effective impedance bandwidth and the antenna is characterized as having good axial ratio (AR) and high radiation efficiency. A proof-of-concept experiment produced reasonable agreement with the simulation studies. The measured results demonstrate that the frequency-agile prototype produced a 3.92% fractional 3-dB AR bandwidth, which is more than four times larger than the 0.84% value of the original fixed-capacitor passive system. Moreover, good impedance matching (|S11|AR,min ≤13 dB); relatively high radiation efficiency (RE 85%); symmetrical, stable, and uniform radiation patterns; CP performance; and peak gain values between 5.81 and 5.93 dB were measured over this frequency-agile range.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number7254152
Pages (from-to)5203-5209
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
Volume63
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1 2015

Keywords

  • Bandwidth
  • circular polarization
  • efficiency
  • electrically small antenna
  • frequency agile
  • monopole antenna

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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