Antenna and Array Technologies for Future Wireless Ecosystems

Chapter 3Low‐Cost Beam‐Reconfigurable Directional Antennas for Advanced Communications

Qi Luo¹, Steven Gao², Xue‐xia Yang³ and Josaphat T. Sri Sumantyo⁴

¹University of Hertfordshire, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science, Hatfield, UK

²University of Kent, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, Canterbury, UK

³Shanghai University, School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai, China

⁴Chiba University, Center for Environmental Remote Sensing, Chiba, Japan

3.1 Introduction

The conventional technique for realizing a beam‐reconfigurable directional antenna is to use a phased array, where the radiating elements are placed in an aperture to form a linear or planar array. To reconfigure the beam, the phase of each array element needs to be adjusted, by using either analogue beamforming, digital beamforming, or hybrid beamforming. Although the phased array shows high‐directivity and good beam‐steering performance, generally speaking, the beamforming networks (BFNs) have high‐costs and bulky configurations. Even if the array antenna is designed to use corporate or series‐fed networks, the BFN is still complex especially when there is a large number of array elements.

How does one reduce the cost of a beam‐reconfigurable directional antenna? This question can be tackled from different angles. The first approach is to reduce the number of array elements without changing the aperture size. In this way, the number of RF components required to reconfigure the ...