Energy storage in reconfigurable antennas

Despite their potential performance advantages, reconfigurable antennas have seen limited use in mobile devices. These complicated antennas can be challenging to design, especially when the structure is electrically small or mid-sized. With small elements, finite groundplanes, and switches or reactive tuning mechanisms, performance of these reconfigurable antennas is often strongly influenced by energy storage effects. Many antenna types achieve their performance characteristics through a careful balance of electric and magnetic energy storage. The distinct effects of magnetic and electric energy storage convey important information about an antenna's characteristics. However, these quantities are not individually available from typical antenna measurements like impedance, or from conventional computational techniques such as the electric field integral equation. This work describes a parallel-computing optimized method of moments code that can be used to obtain the classic method of moments impedance matrix Z = R+jX as well as the Vandenbosch energy storage matrices Xe and Xm. The energy storage matrices can be used to provide a more complete picture of how an antenna's physical structure results in radiation and electric and magnetic energy storage. Energy storage analysis techniques are applied to study familiar antennas, such as the dipole and monopole, as well as to investigate potential modifications to finite groundplanes. These techniques are then extended to develop design guidelines for reconfigurable structures, including a frequency-reconfigurable inverted-F antenna. The use of energy storage modes is found to simplify the task of designing effective electrically small and mid-sized reconfigurable antennas.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2021

Author dc:creator

• Wilken-Resman, Elias

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bernhard, Jennifer
• Franke, Steven
• Jin, Jian-Ming
• Schutt-Aine, Jose

• antennas
• reconfigurable antennas
• energy storage

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Elias Wilken-Resman

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109551

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109551