Planar Ultrathin Small Beam-Switching Antenna

A novel planar ultrathin electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) is presented in this paper. Through theoretical analysis of the electric fields of orthogonally crossed dipoles in phase quadrature, it is found that the crossed dipoles radiate linearly polarized wave with a rotational electric field in the azimuth plane. This characteristic is then utilized to design a planar crossed dipole ESPAR, termed as CD-ESPAR. Furthermore, a simple but effective impedance matching method is also proposed and analyzed. To verify these concepts, a prototype with compact size and very low profile (0.42 lambda(0) x 0.42 lambda(0) x 0.006 lambda(0)) resonating at 2.3 GHz is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results indicate that the proposed antenna achieves more than 17.8% impedance bandwidth and can produce four directional beams, covering the whole azimuth plane. Owing to its planar ultrathin structure, compact size, electronically beam-switching ability, low power, and low cost characteristics, it is promising for applications in wireless communications.