A Compact Pattern-Reconfigurable Dielectric Resonator Antenna Based on Magnetoelectric Dipole
Xiaotong Sun, Shiwen Lei, Menglong Chen, Fengkai Chen, Wei Yang, Jing Tian
Abstract
A compact pattern-reconfigurable dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) based on magnetoelectric (ME) dipole is proposed in this letter. For this DRA, six patches and a dielectric resonator working in TE <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_{111}$</tex-math></inline-formula> mode are introduced as the electric dipole (E-dipole) array and magnetic dipole (M-dipole), respectively, which form ME-dipoles with a dual-mode response. By switching the feeding path for the E-dipole array, the pattern can be reconfigured among one broadside mode and two tilted modes. Moreover, a reconfigurable feeding network is designed to realize electrical tuning. As a result, a pattern-reconfigurable DRA with a compact size of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.40\lambda _{0} \times 0.40\lambda _{0} \times 0.08\lambda _{0}$</tex-math></inline-formula> ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{0}$</tex-math></inline-formula> represents the free-space wavelength at 3.55 GHz) is implemented. To verify this idea, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The measured overlapping <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$| S_{11} |$</tex-math></inline-formula> under -10 dB is 3.25-3.80 GHz (15.6%) for sub-6 GHz applications. In the operating band, the gain variation of each mode is less than 1 dB, and stable radiation achieves a beam steering among -32 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula> , 0 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula> , and +32 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula> in the vertical plane.