IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO.
10, OCTOBER 2015
VI. C ONCLUSION
A novel directional microstrip quasi Yagi array antenna is proposed
to achieve a wide bandwidth with a low profile and a compact struc-
ture. The proposed antenna provides a stable high gain in its bandwidth
with a low profile of 1.5 mm (0.03 λ0 at 5.8 GHz). For the array with a
single annular sector director, an impedance bandwidth of 13.6% (from
5.1 to 5.85 GHz) is achieved with a peak gain of 8.2 dBi. With two
annular sector directors, the bandwidth is improved to 17.6% (from
5.05 to 6.02 GHz) and the peak gain is 10 dBi. The sizes of the arrays
with a single and dual director are approximately 0.9λ0 × 0.9λ0 and
1.2λ0 × 1.2λ0 , respectively. The proposed antenna provides a larger
bandwidth than previous low profile microstrip Yagi array anten-
nas. It has a simple and compact structure, which makes it easy to
manufacture.
R EFERENCES
[1] J. Huang, “Planar microstrip Yagi array antenna,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas
Propag. Soc. Int. Symp., Jun. 1989, vol. 2, pp. 894–897.
[2] J. Huang and A. Densmore, “Microstrip Yagi antenna for mobile satel-
lite vehicle application,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 39, no. 7,
pp. 1024–1030, Jul. 1991.
[3] G. R. DeJean and M. M. Tentzeris, “A new high-gain microstrip Yagi
array antenna with a high front-to-back (F/B) ratio for WLAN and
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no. 2, pp. 298–304, Feb. 2007.
[4] G. R. DeJean, T. T. Thai, S. Nikolaou, and M. M. Tentzeris, “Design and
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Jun. 2007.
[5] T. T. Thai, G. R. DeJean, and M. M. Tentzeris, “Design and develop-
ment of a novel compact soft-surface structure for the front-to-back ratio
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IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 7, pp. 369–373, Jun. 2008.
[6] H. Zhang, Y. Abdallah, and R. Chantalat, “Low-profile and high-
gain Yagi wire-patch antenna for WiMAX application,” IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 11, pp. 659–662, Jun. 2012.
[7] J. Liu and Q. Xue, “Microstrip magnetic dipole Yagi array antenna
with endfire radiation and vertical polarization,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 1140–1147, Mar. 2013.
[8] Z. Briqech, A. R. Sebak, and T. A. Denidni, “High-efficiency 60 GHz
printed Yagi antenna array,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett.,
vol. 12, pp. 1224–1227, Sep. 2013.
[9] O. Kramer, T. Djerafi, and K. Wu, “Vertically multilayer-stacked Yagi
antenna with single and dual polarizations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 1022–1030, Apr. 2010.
[10] O. Kramer, T. Djerafi, and W. Ke, “Very small footprint 60 GHz stacked
Yagi antenna array,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 59, no. 9,
pp. 3204–3210, Sep. 2011.
[11] A. Al-Zoubi, F. Yang, and A. Kishk, “A broadband center-fed circular
patch-ring antenna with a monopole like radiation pattern,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 789–792, Mar. 2009.
[12] Y. Zhang, J. Liu, Z. Liang, and Y. Long, “A wide-bandwidth monopo-
lar patch antenna with dual-ring couplers,” Int. J. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 2014, p. 6, 2014.
[13] X. Hu, Y. Li, and Y. Long, “Novel dual-frequency microstrip antenna
with narrow half-ring and half-circular patch,” IEEE Antennas Wireless
Propag. Lett., vol. 12, pp. 3–6, Dec. 2013.
[14] K. F. Lee and K. M. Luk, Microstrip Patch Antenna. London, U.K.:
Imperial College Press, 2011, ch. 4–6, pp. 58–147.
[15] W. F. Richar, J. D. Ou, and S. Longds, “A theoretical and experimen-
tal investigation of annular, annular sector, and circular sector microstrip
antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 864–870,
Aug. 1984.
[16] R.-M. A. Sultan and V. K. Tripathi, “The mode features of an annular
sector microstrip antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 38, no. 2,
pp. 265–269, Feb. 1990.
0018-926X © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
4529
Very Small Dual Band-Notched Rectangular Slot Antenna
With Enhanced Impedance Bandwidth
Seyed Ramin Emadian and Javad Ahmadi-Shokouh
Abstract—A very small coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed rectangular slot
antenna with dual band-notched characteristics for super ultrawideband
(UWB) applications is proposed. This antenna consists of a rectangular
slot, a beveled rectangular patch, two S-shaped slits cut in the ground plane
and an elliptical ring slot (ERS) etched in the patch. The corners of a sim-
ple rectangular patch are beveled to improve the impedance bandwidth,
especially at the middle frequencies of the band. In addition, a pair of semi-
circle slots is etched in the ground plane to enhance the bandwidth to more
than 23 GHz. A pair of S-shaped slits connected to the rectangular slot, and
an ERS cut in the beveled rectangular patch, is employed to create band-
notched performances in WiMAX and WLAN spectrum, respectively. The
proposed antenna has a very small size of 15 × 15 mm2 , and therefore,
it is one of the smallest UWB slot antennas that have been reported until
now, and provide a very wide impedance bandwidth from 2.6 to more than
23 GHz for VSWR < 2 with dual band-notched properties.
Index Terms—Beveled rectangular slot, dual band-notched properties,
semicircle slot, S-shaped and elliptical ring slots (ERSs).
I. I NTRODUCTION
Regarding the approval and allocation of the frequency band
between 3.1 and 10.6 GHz by the Federal Communication
Commission (FCC), ultrawideband (UWB) communication systems
have become one of the most developing technologies in recent years.
UWB systems have advantages such as low cost for short range com-
munication, low propagation power, high data rate, remote sensing
application, and highly secured environment. On the other hand, com-
mercial UWB systems need compact inexpensive antennas with wide
bandwidth and good radiation properties. UWB antennas have been
broadly employed to wireless communications, imaging, and wireless
sensor networks. With progress of wireless communication systems,
more applications have been employed to mobile wireless dongles with
smaller size and lighter weight. It is recently noted that small UWB
antennas are needed for some medical applications such as microwave
imaging for breast cancer. The sensors generally have restricted size,
capability, and battery life; hence, UWB antennas are suitable for com-
munication between the sensors due to its low-cost and low power
consumption [1].
As a result, increasing demands for super wideband antenna design-
ing in a limited space are desired. A number of UWB planar antennas
with different shapes such as E-shaped [2], circle-like [3], [4] polygon
[5], [6], and rectangular [7]–[9] slot have been empirically reported.
One of the key issues in UWB antennas is the design of a compact
and small antenna with enhanced impedance bandwidth. To enhance
the impedance bandwidth, different methods have been investigated.
For example, carving two sectors on bottom-side of the parasitic patch
[10], employing octagonal-shaped patch [11], using stepped connec-
tion structure between slot line and tapered patches [12], loading of
Manuscript received May 09, 2014; revised March 08, 2015; accepted June
09, 2015. Date of publication July 15, 2015; date of current version October 02,
2015.
The authors are with the Department of Telecommunication Engineering,
University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan 9816745845, Iran (e-mail:
ramin.emadian@gmail.com; jahmadis@ieee.org).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are
available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2015.2456905
4530 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2015
inverted L-strip over a rectangular patch [13], circle-like slot anten-
nas with a trident-shaped feed line [14], rotated square-shaped patch
slot antenna [15] have been recently employed. However, the wide
bandwidth for UWB systems will cause interference with other nar-
row band systems such as the WLAN operating in 5.15–5.35 GHz
and 5.725–5.825 GHz bands and WiMAX operating in 3.3-3.7 GHz
band. Hence, filtering structures are required in UWB systems to avoid
these interferences. Since the use of external band-stop filter to reject
the interfering bands increases system’s complexity and size, therefore
design of UWB antenna with band-notched properties will be desired
not only to eliminate the destructive interference but also to omit the
need for an extra band stop filter. In this regard, different strategies
with band-notched properties have been recently investigated. One
general technique is to apply various shaped slots on the radiating
patch and ground plane [16]–[21]. Other main methods employ par-
asitic strips [22]–[26] and hybrid methods that apply a combination of
the mentioned techniques [27].
Although the size of the recently reported antennas has been rel-
atively reduced, their impedance bandwidth is limited and they have
only single band-notched properties, because their reduced size cannot
create another filtering structure [15], [22], [23], [26].
In this paper, a very small rectangular slot antenna with dual band-
notched properties and enhanced impedance bandwidth is proposed.
Unlike the antennas reported in [5], [6], [11], [24], and [26], the pro-
posed antenna is fabricated on a low-cost FR4 substrate and fed by
a CPW transmission line. By using the CPW feed line, misalign-
ment between the radiation patch and ground plane can be eliminated,
because etching occurs only on one side of the substrate. Hence,
the antenna can be easily integrated with other RF microwave cir-
cuits. Owing to the simple design, small size, CPW feed line, and
FR4 substrate, the manufacturing cost of the proposed antenna can
be remarkably reduced. Table I presents some beneficial data about
the recently presented UWB antennas. Compared to the antennas men-
tioned in Table I, the proposed antenna has the smallest size. Moreover,
the proposed antenna provides a very wide impedance bandwidth from
2.6 to more than 23 GHz (more than 160%). This bandwidth is wider
than those that are reported in Table I [2]–[27].
This simultaneously multitask feature (small size, very wide
impedance bandwidth, and filtering structures) of the proposed antenna
has not been reported in previous designs. The proposed antenna
features a small physical size of 15 × 15 mm2 , corresponding to
an electrically size of 0.12λ at the lower edge of the frequency
band.
II. A NTENNA D ESIGN
Fig. 1 demonstrates the geometry of the proposed antenna structure.
The antenna structure consists of a rectangular slot, a beveled rectan-
gular patch, a pair of S-shaped slits etched in the ground plane, an
elliptical ring slot (ERS) cut in the beveled rectangular patch, and two
semicircle slots with a radius of 0.75 mm etched in the ground plane.
The proposed slot antenna is fed by a coplanar waveguide (CPW) line
and printed on an FR4 substrate of thickness 1.6 mm, εr = 4.4, and
loss tangent 0.0018. The 50-Ω CPW feed line has a center strip width
of 3 mm and a gap of distance 0.5 mm between the signal strip and
the finite coplanar rectangular ground plane. Design of the rectangu-
lar slot is determined by minimizing the slot zone while satisfying this
aim that the input impedance is matched for the entire UWB band.
To achieve the single band-notched property, an ERS is inserted in
the beveled rectangular patch. The ERS width is uniform (= 0.8 mm)
along its length. Two S-shaped slits are added to the antenna structure
to obtain dual band-notched properties. The width of these slits, which
are connected to the rectangular slot, is fixed at 0.3 mm.
TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF S EVERAL UWB A NTENNAS W ITH
THE P ROPOSED A NTENNA
Proposed rectangular slot antenna. Dimensions (mm2 ): 15 × 15; fractional
bandwidth: > 160%.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS
In this section, the antenna with different design parameters is
created, and the simulated and measured results are presented and dis-
cussed. Ansoft HFSS (high-frequency simulation structure) based on
the finite element method is used to perform the design process.
A. Full-Band UWB Rectangular Slot Antenna
The antenna design process begins by designing a simple UWB
slot antenna. In our design, a rectangular patch and slot with proper
dimension are employed to create the proposed UWB antenna. The
physical size of the proposed antenna is very small, but the electrical
size measured in wavelength λ (the wavelength related to the first reso-
nant frequency of the band) is not so small. The electrical lengthening
allows the construction of smaller antennas. By suitably choosing the
wide slot and radiating patch shape and well tuning their dimensions,
the electrical size of the proposed antenna can be increased to cover the
lower frequencies of the band. This design makes a better use of sub-
strate area and reduces the total size of the proposed antenna. In planar
slot antennas such as the proposed antenna in this paper, the lowest
frequency is specified by the longest electrical length of the current.
By employing a proper rectangular slot in the ground plane and reduc-
ing the width of the ground strip which is surrounding the rectangular
slot, the longest current path is increased and hence the lowest reso-
nant frequency is reduced, resulting in a better impedance matching at
lower frequencies. By inserting two triangular notches with proper size
in the corners of the rectangular radiating patch, very good impedance
characteristics are obtained. In the simple rectangular patch without
triangular notches, there is a keen and abrupt discontinuity in the con-
nection point between the CPW feed line and the rectangular patch,
where it can be an important factor for decreasing the bandwidth at the
higher frequencies. By applying these triangular notches, a balance
between the vertical and horizontal electrical currents on the patch can
be achieved and several resonances will be produced, and hence the
total bandwidth of the antenna with modified patch can be bettered.
To further enhance the bandwidth of the antenna, two semicircle
slots are embedded in the both side of the CPW feedline on the ground
plane as depicted in Fig. 1. The distance between the lower edge of
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2015
Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed slot antenna with dual band-notched function
(unit: millimeters).
Fig. 2. Simulated return loss characteristics for the different antenna structures.
the patch and the ground below it is another important parameter in
adjusting the coupling between the radiation patch and ground plane.
By properly creating the semicircle slots in the ground plane, a bet-
ter coupling between the lower edges of the patch and ground will
be obtained and unwanted coupling which deteriorates the impedance
and radiation characteristics of the antenna can be eliminated. Fig. 2
demonstrates the return loss of the antenna with the simple rectangu-
lar and beveled rectangular patch and with the semicircle slots in the
ground plane. It is found that by cutting the corners of the rectangu-
lar patch, a smooth transition from one resonant mode to another can
be achieved which leads to a good impedance matching over a wide
frequency range.
Also, as depicted in Fig. 2, by properly inserting the semicircle slots
in the ground plane, the impedance bandwidth of the antenna can be
greatly enhanced. To clarify the phenomenon behind this impedance
bandwidth improvement, the surface electrical currents for the anten-
nas discussed in Fig. 2 at 15.5 GHz are depicted in Fig. 3. It can clearly
be seen that the keen discontinuity appeared in the simple rectangular
patch is well modified in the beveled rectangular patch. Hence, the sud-
den change in electrical surface currents at two corners of the beveled
rectangular patch, which are the active areas in high frequencies, is not
appeared. In Fig. 3(b), the current distribution at the region indicated
by the dotted line on the ground plane is irregular. By inserting the
semicircle slots in that region, the surface currents distribute regularly
on the ground plane. The impedance bandwidth alters because of the
resonant features of the semicircle slots. It is understood that by using
4531
Fig. 3. Surface current distributions on the antenna with (a) simple rectangular
patch, (b) beveled rectangular patch, and (c) beveled rectangular patch and two
semicircle slots in the ground plane, at 15.5 GHz.
these slots in the antenna structure, additional resonant modes can be
excited, and therefore, the antenna bandwidth can be greatly increased.
B. Single and Dual Band-Notched UWB Slot Antenna
An ERS with variable length is etched in the beveled rectangu-
lar patch to achieve the single band-notched properties in the WLAN
spectrum (5.15–5.85 GHz). The ERS acts as a half wavelength res-
onator, and therefore, its total length should be equal to half the
wavelength at desired notch frequency. The ERS parameters can be
determined using the following equations and the simulation results
obtained from HFSS software:
  
Ce ≈ π 3 (a + b) − (3a + b) (a + 3b) (1)
Lers ≈ Ce − Lg (2)
where Ce is the circumference of the ellipse with major axes “a” and
minor axes “b” obtained from [29] (see Fig. 1), Lg is the distance
between two ends of the ERS, and Lers is the outer length of the
ERS. By determining the total length of the ERS that operates as half a
wavelength slot resonator, it can be adjusted to reject the desired notch
frequency as follows [27]:
c λg
Lers ≈ √ ≈ (3)
2fnotch εref f 2
In (3), fnotch and c are, respectively, the desired notch frequency
and the speed of light in free space. Moreover, εref f ≈ 1+ε 2
r
and λg
is the guided wavelength. For the notch frequency of 5.6 GHz, a =
1.65 mm, b = 3.3 mm, and Lg = 1 mm.
Fig. 4 shows the simulated VSWR of the antenna with different
values of the ERS length. As depicted in Fig. 4, when the distance
between two ends of the ERS increases from 0.5 to 2.5 mm, the cen-
ter frequency of the notched band is shifted from 6.25 to 4.5 GHz.
Moreover, the filter bandwidth is changed from 1.35 to 0.5 GHZ when
the distance Lg increases from 0.5 to 2.5 mm. It is found that the notch
frequency and the bandwidth of the notched band can be controlled by
changing the distance between two ends of the ERS.
4532 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2015
Fig. 4. Simulated VSWR of the single band-notched antenna for different
values of Lg .
Fig. 5. Measured and simulated VSWR of the proposed antenna.
Two S-shaped slits connected to the rectangular slot are added to
the antenna structure to create band-rejected filtering properties in the
WiMAX. Fig. 5 demonstrates the simulated and measured VSWR of
the proposed dual band-notched rectangular slot antenna. The image
of the fabricated proposed antenna is also shown in Fig. 5. It can be
observed from Fig. 5 that the designed antenna has a very wideband
performance from 2.6 to more than 23 GHz for VSWR < 2, with dual
notched bands of 3.1–3.9 and 5.1–6 GHz. To clarify the operation
of the filtering structures on the antenna performance, the simulated
electrical current distribution of the proposed antenna at two notch fre-
quencies is shown in Fig. 6. As seen in Fig. 6(a), the electrical current
concentrates around the S-shaped slits in the ground plane at 3.5 GHz
(the center frequency of the first notched band). From the figure, it can
be seen that the direction of the electrical currents changes at the edges
of the S-shaped slits because of the band-notched characteristics of the
proposed S-shaped slits at the first notch frequency. These slits can be
regarded as a resonator and their effective length on which the current
direction is changed is equal to a quarter wavelength at 3.5 GHz. At
5.6 GHz (the center frequency of the second notched band), the electri-
cal current is mainly concentrated around the exterior edge of the ERS
in the beveled rectangular patch. As shown in the figure, the current’s
direction is upright at the interior edge of the ERS while the direction
of the electrical current at the exterior edge of the ERS is downward.
At the notch frequencies, destructive interferences can occur in the
antenna. For a better comparison, the simulated surface currents at two
pass-band frequencies (4.5 and 8.5 GHz) are also shown in Fig. 6(c)
and (d). However, the effects of the S-shaped and ERSs are negligible
at the other pass-band frequencies.
C. Radiation Characteristics
Fig. 7 demonstrates the measured radiation patterns of the pro-
posed antenna containing co-polarization and cross-polarization in the
Fig. 6. Surface current distributions of the proposed antenna at (a) 3.5 GHz
(first notch frequency), (b) 5.6 GHz (second notch frequency), (c) 4.5 GHz, and
(d) 8.5 GHz (pass-band frequencies).
H-plane (X–Z plane) and E-plane (Y–Z plane) at the four sampling
frequencies (3, 6.5, 10.5, and 15.5 GHz). It can be observed that the
radiation patterns in the H-plane are nearly omnidirectional and in
the E-plane, the proposed antenna has nearly monopole-like radia-
tion patterns as expected. At higher frequencies, the cross-polarization
component significantly grows. It could be due to the unequal phase
distribution of electrical fields on the slot, increased magnitudes of
higher order modes frequencies and more horizontal current modes
on the antenna [10]. Fig. 8 shows the measured and simulated maxi-
mum gain and radiation efficiency of the proposed dual band-notched
slot antenna over the entire bandwidth. In UWB slot antennas, the
mismatch caused by the reflected power could be the most remark-
able loss term in the antenna radiation characteristics [30]; therefore,
a good impedance matching over the operating bandwidth can reduce
the reflected power mismatch, which results a better radiation gain of
the antenna. For comparison, the measured maximum gain and radia-
tion efficiency of the antenna without the filtering structures (S-shaped
and ERSs) are also shown in Fig. 8. At lower frequencies, the realized
gain of the antenna is low. It could be due to the small size of the pro-
posed antenna. At higher frequencies, since the higher order modes are
excited and the radiation patterns become partly directional, the gain
of the antenna is increased. The gain variation within the bandwidth
(except at the notch frequencies) is about 4 dBi. However, according
to the very wide bandwidth of the proposed antenna, this amount of
the gain variation could be acceptable. It can be seen from Fig. 8 that
two sharp gain and radiation efficiency nulls in the 3–4 and 5–6 GHz
bands of the dual band-notched antenna are achieved. Meanwhile,
the antenna shows good gain properties at other frequencies in the
band.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2015
Fig. 7. Measured normalized radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at (a) 3,
(b) 6.5, (c) 10.5, and (d) 15.5 GHz.
Fig. 8. Measured and simulated maximum gain and radiation efficiency of the
proposed antenna with and without filtering structures.
4533
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a very small and compact CPW-fed rectangular slot
antenna with dual band-notched properties at WiMAX and WLAN
frequencies has been presented and discussed. The results show that
by cutting the corners of the rectangular patch and inserting two semi-
circle slots in the ground plane, the bandwidth of the antenna can be
greatly improved and enhanced. It is also shown that by inserting an
ERS in the radiating patch and two S-shaped slits in the ground plane,
dual band-notched properties can be achieved.
Owing to the very small size, very wide impedance bandwidth,
and good radiation properties, the proposed antenna can be a good
candidate for the super wideband applications.
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0018-926X © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Dynamic Beam Shaping Using a Dual-Band Electronically
Tunable Reflectarray Antenna
Amin Tayebi, Junyan Tang, Pavel Roy Paladhi, Lalita Udpa,
Satish S. Udpa, and Edward J. Rothwell
Abstract—An electronically reconfigurable dual-band reflectarray
antenna is presented in this paper. The tunable unit cell, a ring loaded
square patch with a single varactor diode connected across the gap between
the ring and the patch, is modeled using both a full-wave solver and an
equivalent circuit. The parameters of the equivalent circuit are calculated
independently of the simulation and experiment using analysis techniques
employed in frequency-selective surfaces (FSSs). The reflection phase of
the proposed unit cell is shown to provide an excellent phase range of 335◦
in F-band and 340◦ in S -band. Results from the analysis are used to design
and build a 10 × 10 element reflectarray antenna. The high tuning phase
range of each element allows the fabricated reflectarray to demonstrate a
very broad steering range of up to ± 60◦ in both frequency bands.
Index Terms—Beam steering, frequency-selective surfaces (FSSs),
reconfigurable antenna, reflectarrays.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The reflectarray antenna, first introduced in 1963, can be thought
of as a reflecting surface where the elements on the array deter-
mine the reflection properties of the surface [1]. Similar to antenna
arrays, to achieve the desired radiation pattern, the proper phase shift
has to be assigned to each element of the array, which can be done
by appropriately choosing the parameters of individual elements. An
array of variable-length, open-ended waveguides was used in [1] to
demonstrate the reflectarray principle.
Later, with the advent of microstrip technology and the extension to
microstrip arrays, reflectarrays became easier to build. First-generation
microstrip reflectarrays comprised patch elements with variable-length
transmission lines attached to the patches, where the reflection from
the open end of the line determined the phase shift of the element
[2]. A variety of microstrip reflectarrays have been developed using
other radiating elements, such as variable-length crossed dipoles in [3].
Research on reflectarrays continued to advance with the introduction
of dual-band reflectarrays. Crossed-dipoles of variable sizes printed
on a single layer [3] and double ring elements [4] are two examples of
dual-band reflectarray antennas.
An extra dimension of versatility is added to this group of anten-
nas by their ability to dynamically adjust element scattering properties
to alter the radiation pattern, and thereby produce tunable reflectar-
rays. Reconfigurable elements are achieved via several techniques. In
[5], a pin diode is incorporated in the unit cell; the ON and OFF states
of the diode alter the electrical length of the element and hence pro-
vide tunablity. Beam shaping is achieved by means of RF MEMS in
[6]. A recent review comparing different technologies can be found
Manuscript received October 27, 2014; revised March 09, 2015; accepted
June 29, 2015. Date of publication July 16, 2015; date of current version
October 02, 2015.
A. Tayebi is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, MI 48824 USA (e-mail: tayebiam@egr.msu.edu).
J. Tang, P. Roy Paladhi, L. Udpa, S. S. Udpa, and E. J. Rothwell are
with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State
University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are
available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2015.2456939