A Flexible Bi-Stable Composite Antenna with Reconfigurable Performance and Light-Responsive Behavior

Abstract

An integrated solution providing a bi-stable antenna with reconfigurable performance and light-responsive behavior is presented in this paper for the first time. The proposed antenna includes a radiation layer with conductivity, which is integrated onto the bi-stable substrate. First, the effect of the radiation layer material and substrate layer parameters on antenna performance was studied. The experiment showed that an antenna with CNTF has a wider impedance bandwidth than one with CSP, namely 10.37% versus 3.29%, respectively. The resonance frequency increases gradually with the increase in fiber laying density and fiber linear density. Second, the influence of state change of the substrate layer on the antenna radiation pattern was studied. The measured results showed that the maximum radiation angle and gain of states I and II are at 90°, 1.21 dB and 225°, 1.53 dB, respectively. The gain non-circularities of the antenna at states I and II are 4.48 dB and 8.35 dB, respectively, which shows that the antenna has good omnidirectional radiation performance in state I. The display of the array antenna, which shows that the array antenna has good omnidirectional radiation performance in state A, with gain non-circularities of 4.20 dB, proves the feasibility of this bi-stable substrate in reconfigurable antennas. Finally, the antenna deforms from state I to state II when the illumination stimulus reaches 22 s, showing good light-responsive behavior. Moreover, the bi-stable composite antenna has the characteristics of small size, light weight, high flexibility, and excellent integration.

Pattern reconfigurable antenna with specified main lobe deflection and stable bandwidth by using bistable composite laminates

“…Liang et al [23] proposed a VHF band printed dipole antenna based on bistable materials with pattern reconfiguration from conventional '8' shape to an ellipse. Huang et al [25] designed a pattern reconfigurable antenna array with lightresponsive behaviour, which can change the maximum radiation angles of state I and II at 90 • and 225 • .…”

“…The bandwidth reduction will result in signal distortion and potential frequency conflicts in the crowded spectrum. This is a common issue in current research [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. For example, the microstrip patch array antenna in [18] exhibited a bandwidth decrease from 67 to 62 MHz and its resonant frequency shifted from 2.314 to 2.445 GHz.…”