Abstract-A reconfigurable antenna (RA) capable of steering its beam into the hemisphere corresponding too }, and of changing 3-dB beamwidth, whereo } for broadside direction is presented. The RA operating in 5 GHz band consists of a driven patch antenna with a parasitic layer placed above it. The upper surface of the parasitic layer has two pixelated metallic strips, where each strip has four pixels. The pixels connected via PIN diode switches enable to change the current distribution on the antenna providing the desired modes of operation. A prototype RA was characterized indicating an average gain of 8 dB. Measured and simulated impedance and radiation patterns agreed well. The proposed RA offers an efficient solution by using less number of switches compared to other RAs. The system level simulations for a 5G orthogonal frequency division multiple access system show that the RA improves capacity/coverage trade-off significantly, where the RA modes and users are jointly determined to create proper beamwidth and directivity at the access point antennas. For a hotspot scenario, the presented RA provided 29% coverage and 16% capacity gain concurrently.

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This paper presents the error vector magnitude (EVM), inter modulation (IM) and radiation performances of a reconfigurable antenna (RA) capable of varying its bandwidth between 3.4-3.6 GHz and 3.1-3.9 GHz bands, and steering its main beam into three directions pertaining to θ ∈ {−30 • , 0 • , 30 • }, φ ∈ {0 • } for each band. The RA employs a multilayer structure, where two parasitically coupled reconfigurable layers using PIN diode switches enable generating the modes of operation. A fully functional RA has been fabricated and characterized. Maximum realized gain of ∼9 dB has been achieved for all modes of operation. Measurements indicated less than -25dB (5.6%) EVM for input powers up to 30dBm and revealed that the combined effects of loose solder joints and large non-linear response of PIN diodes are the main factors resulting in passive IM products. Index Terms-Reconfigurable antennas, Multifrequency antennas, EVM, PIM

Space-shift-keying (SSK) and spatial modulation (SM) enable multiple antenna transmission systems to convey information on antenna indices. While SSK/SM helps reduce the number of radio frequency (RF) chains, large numbers of antennas and low spatial correlations are required to achieve high data rates. This work investigates the use and design of multifunctional reconfigurable antennas (MRAs) for SSK/SM based transmission where a single-element MRA generates large numbers of modes. To enhance legacy SSK/SM performance while reducing RF hardware complexity, we propose single-and multi-carrier antenna mode-shift keying (MoSK) and mode modulation (MoM) schemes facilitated by MRAs. Based on an error probability analysis, we determine criteria for MRA design and mode set selection suitable for MoSK/MoM. We also develop two MRA designs and investigate their performances over Rayleigh fading channels. We argue that by creating MRA modes with low pattern correlations, channel correlations can be reduced to improve the detection performance. Extensive simulations demonstrate that MoSK/MoM performance exceeds that of SSK/SM along with significant complexity reduction. For instance, a single-carrier MoSK/MoM using a single MRA with 8 modes achieves about 2 dB gain compared to legacy SSK/SM requiring 8 antennas, and by multi-carrier MoSK/MoM using 4 subcarriers, an MRA with 32 modes can attain an error rate performance comparable to this single-carrier system.

In this letter, a reconfigurable dual-polarized broadband antenna with beam-steering capabilities using a parasitic layer is proposed for 5G New Radio (NR) Frequency Range 1 (FR-1) applications. The antenna is a dual-port aperture-stacked patch structure with symmetrical orthogonal (horizontal and vertical) currents. The beam-steering is achieved by a pair of reconfigurable cross-shaped parasitic strips which bestow the antenna three main beam directions θ = {∼ −25 • , 0 • , ∼ 25 • }, φ = {0 • }, with pointing and gain ( 7 dB) stability across a 30% impedance bandwidth (S11 & S22 < −10 dB) from 3.2 − 4.3 GHz for both ports/polarizations. A prototype of the antenna is manufactured and measured demonstrating results in accordance with simulation expectations.