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Microfluidically Frequency-Reconfigurable Quasi-Yagi Dipole Antenna

Authors :
Syed Imran Hussain Shah
Sungjoon Lim
Source :
Sensors, Vol 18, Iss 9, p 2935 (2018)
Publication Year :
2018
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2018.

Abstract

In this paper, a frequency reconfigurable quasi-Yagi dipole antenna is proposed by leveraging the properties of microfluidic technology. The proposed antenna comprises a metal-printed driven dipole element and three directors. To tune resonant frequencies, microfluidic channels are integrated into the driven element. To maintain a high gain for all the tuned frequencies, microfluidic channels are also integrated into the directors. Therefore, the length of the driven-element as well as directors can be controlled by injecting liquid metal in the microfluidic channels. The proposed antenna has the capability of tuning the frequency by varying the length of the metal-filled channels, while maintaining a high gain for all the tuned frequencies. The proposed antenna’s performance is experimentally demonstrated after fabrication. The injected amount of liquid metal into the microfluidic channels is controlled using programmable pneumatic micropumps. The prototype exhibits continuous tuning of the resonant frequencies from 1.8 GHz to 2.4 GHz; the measured peak gain of the proposed antenna is varied in the range of 8 dBi to 8.5 dBi. Therefore, continuous tuning with high gain is successfully demonstrated using liquid-metal-filled microfluidic channels.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14248220
Volume :
18
Issue :
9
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Sensors
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.fd1beb88abf34a55a2d13d5e5f909ad2
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092935