A Radiation Reconfigurable Magnetic Line Source Antenna: Modeling, Integration With RF MEMS, and Applications

159 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.This document presents the work and progress of a radiation reconfigurable microstrip antenna. It has been designed to reconfigure its radiation pattern between broadside and endfire directions. Each configuration operates within an impedance bandwidth common to both states, and the desired radiation characteristics in both states occur in the same plane (principal plane) of the antenna with the same polarization (principal polarization). A unique analytical modeling technique---developed for the reconfigurable antenna in this work---verifies the radiating mechanism, accurately predicts the reconfigured radiation patterns, and provides physical insight into the impedance behavior. It also serves as a basis for future designs having different substrate and/or frequency requirements, and provides the root for the antenna's name---the Magnetic Line Source Antenna MSLA. Integration of the reconfigurable antenna with packaged RF MEMS switches (S-band design) has been implemented (bias structures, control lines, etc.) and measured results are provided. This continues with discussion on the fabrication (direct integration) of the antenna with RF MEMS switches (Ka-band design) using bulk micromachining processes. The attributes of this reconfigurable antenna have a wide variety of applications and offer potential benefits to many areas. The applications discussed include potential improvements in the scanning capabilities of large phased arrays, applications in diversity and antenna correlation, and multimode radiating structures.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD