Novel on-wafer radiation-pattern measurement technique for MEMS actuator-based reconfigurable patch antennas

The paper presents a novel, on-wafer, antenna far-field pattern-measurement technique for micro-electromechanical systems(MEMS) based reconfigurable patch antennas. The measurement technique significantly reduces the time and the cost associated with the characterization of printed antennas fabricated on a semiconductor wafer or dielectric substrate. To measure the radiation patterns, the RF probe station is modified to accommodate an open-ended rectangular waveguide as the rotating linearly polarized sampling antenna. The open-ended waveguide is attached through a coaxial rotary joint to a Plexiglas((TM)) arm, and is driven along an arc by a stepper motor. Thus, the spinning open-ended waveguide can sample the relative field intensity of the patch as a function of the angle from boresight. The experimental results include the measured linearly polarized and circularly polarized radiation patterns for MEMS-based frequency-reconfigurable rectangular and polarization-reconfigurable nearly square patch antennas, respectively.