Printed Dipole Antenna Array With Reconfigurable Feeding Network for Wide Elevation Angle of U2X Communications

Abstract

In this paper, a printed dipole antenna array with reconfigurable feeding network for wide elevation angle of U2X communications is presented. The proposed array consists of a printed 8-element dipole antenna array in the top substrate, two supports with a tapered balun and two reflectors with the reconfigurable feeding network in the bottom substrate. To achieve high gain and wide beam coverage, the proposed reconfigurable feeding network consists of single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switches, single-pole three-throw (SP3T) switches, Wilkinson power dividers, and hybrid couplers. The proposed array antenna forms a $3\times 3$ beam consisting of broadside and end-fire beams based on the $x$ - and $y$ -axis using a reconfigurable feeding network. The measured impedance bandwidth, peak gain, and half-power beamwidths (HPBWs) at $\phi $ =0° and $\phi $ =90° of the proposed array are approximately 1250 MHz (25%), 7.9 dBi, 197° and 100°, respectively. The overall volume size of the proposed array is $75\times 96 \times 21$ mm3 ( $1.3{\lambda _{0}}{\times } 1.6{\lambda _{0}}{\times } 0.4\lambda _{0}$ at 5.1 GHz). ? 2013 IEEE.