Phase and Polarization Digitally Modulated Array Using Reconfigurable DR Element: Proposal, Design, and Verification

The proposal, design, and verification of a phase and polarization digitally reconfigurable/modulated array using the reconfigurable dielectric resonator (DR) elements are developed in this article. Different from the conventional phased arrays and reconfigurable antennas, the radiated electromagnetic (EM) wave can be flexibly controlled by simultaneously modulating its phase and polarization. To realize phase switching, a clever 1 bit phase shifter (0 degrees/180 degrees) is introduced in the element design. The polarization states are controlled by integrating the switch-loaded feeding structure, and a compact 2 bit polarization tuner [0 degrees-LP, 90 degrees-LP, right-handed circular polarization (RHCP), and LHCP] is finally realized. Since every element can realize 1 bit phase and 2 bit polarization switching, the far-field beams and polarization types of the array format can be arbitrarily modulated by designing the coding sequence. To verify the proposed working principle, a compact reconfigurable metasurface-loaded DR element and a four-element digitally reconfigurable linear array are implemented, respectively. The overlapped 10 dB impedance and 3 dB axial ratio bandwidths are 2.35-2.55 GHz (12.5%) and 2.42-2.48 GHz (2.4%), respectively, (covering 2.40 GHz WIFI/bluetooth (BT) band). More importantly, it can achieve 16 different beam and polarization modes. The proposed antennas exhibit a low cost, compact size, good bandwidth, and flexible radiation modulation capacity. They are promising candidates for future smart antennas to and control EM waves.