Beam‐forming capabilities of a plasma circular reflector antenna
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: A gaseous plasma antenna array (PAA) is an aggregate of plasma discharges and possibly conventional metallic radiating elements, and it constitutes a promising alternative to metallic antennas for applications in which fast reconfiguration of radiation pattern, and gain is desired; such properties can be achieved by exploiting the electronic switch on/off condition of plasma discharges, and tuning of the plasma parameters. Here, the authors present a reconfigurable PAA that features a central metallic half‐wavelength dipole working around 1.45 GHz, surrounded by a planar circular lattice of cylindrical plasma discharges. Customised plasma discharges have been realised, and filled with argon gas at 2 mbar so as to have a complete control on the plasma discharge properties (e.g. plasma frequency, collisional frequency). The magnitude of the reflection coefficient, and the gain pattern on the H ‐plane have been investigated numerically and experimentally; numerical and experimental results exhibit a good agreement and show that the central intrinsically omnidirectional antenna can provide simple beamforming capabilities upon turning on a subset of plasma discharges; as these plasma discharges are turned on, the authors have observed a maximum gain of ∼5 dBi, a half‐power beam width of , and an angular steering resolution of ∼ .
Institutions: University of Padua, University of Udine
Language: English
Topic: Antenna Design and Analysis
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
Award: G2211158193
OpenAlex ID: W2886608457