RASTREO · multi-Reconfigurable Antenna SoluTions based on REflectarray technOlogy

Today it has become clear that the ever increasing demand for more flexible and efficient services in telecommunications and sensing applications will only be met by the dynamic-reconfiguration of electromagnetic radiating systems. In this context, significant research effort has been made in the last years, leading to the development of e.g. frequency-reconfigurable antennas for handheld devices, or beam-scanning directive antennas for flexible earth coverage. However, despite its huge potential ‘multi-reconfigurability’ –namely, the possibility of dynamic control in the spatial, frequential, and polarization domains– of large directive antennas has not been studied yet. This capability would be very useful in numerous applications such as, satellite communication and cognitive radio, to name a few, while making a more efficient use of spectrum and energy resources.Therefore, this project proposes to study, for the first time, an efficient solution to large directive antennas able to simultaneously achieve spatial, frequential, and polarization dynamic-reconfiguration. The reflectarray concept will be employed to that purpose, since –in addition to other known benefits– its ‘space feeding’ allows much simpler solutions for obtaining the desired novel frequency and polarization dynamic control.Microfabrication technologies for RF reconfiguration will be employed to implement the proposed concepts, in order to achieve higher frequency operation, enhanced performance, integration, and low power consumption.""