Pixel-based reconfigurable antenna applicable in fluid antenna systems
AssigneeThe Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
InventorsJichen Zhang, Junhui Rao, Zhaoyang Ming, Zan Li, Chi Yuk Chiu, Ross David Murch
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Abstract
A pixel-based reconfigurable antenna (PRA) and the method for designing a PRA are disclosed. The PRA supports a total of N fluid antenna system (FAS) ports uniformly distributed across a linear length of Wλ. A physical model is established to connect the correlation of the antenna's reconfigurable radiation patterns with the spatial correlation of physical displacement. A two-step search optimization algorithm is proposed to find the optimized configurations of a pixel layer of the PRA.
Claims31
A pixel-based reconfigurable antenna (PRA) comprising:
- a lower substrate;
- a ground plane attached to a bottom surface of the lower substrate;
- a patch antenna attached to a top surface of the lower substrate, wherein the patch antenna serves as a radiation source of the PRA, and the radiation source is configured to be fed from a back side of the ground plane through a probe;
- an upper substrate disposed above the lower substrate and separated from the lower substrate with a spacing of hair;
- and
- a pixel layer consisting of plural metallic pixel patches attached to a top surface of the upper substrate, the plural metallic pixel patches being arranged in a uniform grid pattern with a constant pitch distance b between any two adjacent metallic pixel patches,
- wherein:
- the patch antenna provides reference electric field, which is then radiated after being coupled to metals of the pixel layer, wherein the pixel layer is reconfigurable, each reconfigurable state of the PRA corresponds to a FAS port, and the PRA supports a total of N fluid antenna system (FAS) ports uniformly distributed across a linear length of Wλ, where λ is wavelength, W is the number of the wavelengths, and N/W>1;
- connections between any two adjacent metallic pixel patches are configured to be hardwired, open-circuited, or implemented via Radio Frequency (RF) switches, and position selections of hardwires, open circuits, and the RF switches satisfy a first condition that the position selections of the hardwires, the open circuits, and the RF switches provide impedance match over a specified bandwidth;
- and
- selection and ordering of the N FAS ports from on/off state combinations of the RF switches satisfy a second condition that any two adjacent FAS ports of the N FAS ports are spatial correlated, wherein the second condition can be satisfied when difference between a radiation pattern covariance matrix of all reconfigurable states and a target covariance matrix is minimized.
A method for designing a pixel-based reconfigurable antenna (PRA), wherein a pixel layer of the PRA is reconfigurable, each reconfigurable state of the PRA corresponds to a FAS port, and the PRA supports a total of N fluid antenna system (FAS) ports uniformly distributed across a linear length of Wλ, where λ is wavelength, W is the number of the wavelengths, and N/W>1, the method comprising:
- selecting positions of hardwires, open circuits, or radio frequency (RF) switches between any two adjacent metallic pixel patches in the pixel layer to satisfy a first condition that the position selections of the hardwires, the open circuits, and the RF switches provide impedance match over a specified bandwidth;
- and
- selecting and ordering the N FAS ports from on/off state combinations of the RF switches to satisfy a second condition that any two adjacent FAS ports of the N FAS ports are spatial correlated, wherein the second condition can be satisfied when difference between a radiation pattern covariance matrix of all reconfigurable states and a target covariance matrix is minimized.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.