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Wideband and Multi-Polarization Reconfigurable

Crossed Bowtie Dipole Antenna

Article in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · October 2017

DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2017.2766439

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Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
1

Wideband and Multi-Polarization

Reconfigurable Crossed Bowtie Dipole Antenna
Huy Hung Tran, Nghia Nguyen-Trong, Member, IEEE, Tuan Tu Le, and
Hyun Chang Park, Member, IEEE

 CP antennas, many studies have focused on microstrip

Abstract—A simple design of a wideband antenna with the
capability of switching its operation among five polarization
states is proposed. The primary radiator consists of two bowtie
dipoles arranged orthogonally through double printed rings. The
polarization-reconfigurability is realized by electronically
switching three PIN-diode pairs. By controlling the current paths
from the feeding coaxial line to each dipole arm and among these
arms, the antenna can change its radiation among circular
polarization (CP) with both rotating senses and liner polarization
(LP) at three different angles, namely 0°, 90°, and 45°. The
fabricated prototype exhibits an impedance bandwidth (BW) of
37.1% from 2.2 GHz to 3.2 GHz for all polarization states. The
axial ratio (AR) BW for both CP states is 50.4%, covering the
above frequency range. A measured realized gain of greater than
6.6 dBi and a radiation efficiency of around 80% over the
overlapped BW are achieved for all states.
Index Terms—Reconfigurable antennas, polarization-
reconfigurable antennas, wideband, circular polarization, linear
polarization, crossed bowtie dipole, PIN diodes.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ITH the remarkable growth of modern wireless
communication systems, polarization-reconfigurable
antennas have become increasingly important to improve the
functionality of current wireless platforms and their quality of
service. Additionally, as many applications require single-
device integration, a single antenna that can operate in a wide
range of frequencies is also desirable. Within existing
literature, the studies in [1–4] have proposed several methods
to design wideband circularly polarized (CP) reconfigurable
antennas. Using L-probe fed microstrip patch [1], crossed
straight dipole structure [2] or loop antenna [3], switchable
dual-sense CP antennas have been realized with about 10% to
13% operation bandwidth (BW). As a trade-off between
structure complexity and BW, an antenna consisting of four
radiating arms connected to a reconfigurable feeding network
was proposed in [4], yielding a CP BW of 23.5% for both
radiating states.
To add the linear polarization (LP)-reconfigurability to the
Manuscript received June 1, 2017.
H. H. Tran, T. T. Le, and H. C. Park are with the Division of Electronics
and Electrical Engineering, Dongguk University-Seoul, Seoul 100-715,
Republic of Korea (e-mail: hcpark@dongguk.edu)
N. Nguyen-Trong is with the School of ITEE, University of Queensland,
Australia.
antennas, such as, square patches with slots [5, 6] or truncated
corners [7], E- or circular-shaped patches [8, 9], square ring
[10], and annular slot antennas [11, 12]. However, due to the
inherent narrow-bandwidth characteristics, these designs only
exhibited limited operation BW of less than 7%. Wider
bandwidth was achieved by using monopole antenna [13],
patch antenna with a cross feeding probe [14], magneto-
electric dipole structures [15, 16], artificial magnetic
conductor [17] and partially reflective surface [18]. Four states
of polarization control, namely 0° LP, 90° LP, RHCP and
LHCP, have been recently developed. They can be realized by
mechanically rotating a metasurface around the center of a slot
antenna [19]. Other approaches are to incorporate a
reconfigurable feeding network [20–25], or multiple antennas
for larger overlapped BW [26]. Alternatively, quad-
polarization diversity can also be generated using a magneto-
electric dipole [27]. Besides, the antenna in [28] can in
principle generate an arbitrary LP polarization angle with a
relatively narrow BW; however, the CP operation was not
achieved.
In summary, all the aforementioned antennas have several
drawbacks such as limited operation bandwidth, complicated
reconfigurable feeding network leading to a degradation on
radiation efficiency and limited number of switching states.
Very few studies have reported methods to obtain five
polarization states [29, 30], but only for very narrow-band
applications. In this paper, we propose a wideband multi-
polarization reconfigurable crossed bowtie dipole antenna.
Despite having a low complexity, the structure exhibits a
significantly enhanced overlapped BW. The key concept is to
utilize a wideband radiating structure, i.e. bowtie-shaped
dipoles, and appropriately choosing the switching
components’ positions to direct the current paths among the
radiating elements. By controlling three pairs of PIN diodes,
the proposed antenna is able to realize five polarization states
including dual-sense CP and tri-reconfigurable LP, namely 0°,
90°, 45°. The antenna operation has been validated
experimentally with an overlapped BW of 37.1% from 2.2
GHz to 3.2 GHz. It is finally noted that although the CP
reconfiguration was achieved in [2] with crossed straight
dipoles, the proposed antenna shows a significant
improvement in terms of design concept, functionality and
operation BW with the addition of three LP states and a
comprehensive design procedure.

0018-926X (c) 2017 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.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2017.2766439, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
2

500 y y y
TABLE I
z x z x z x
POLARIZATION BY DIFFERENT STATES OF PIN DIODES 400

E-field 300
Polarization (D1, D2) (D3, D4) (D5, D6) [V/m]
200
0° LP ON OFF OFF
90° LP OFF ON OFF 100

45° LP ON ON OFF 1 0° LP 90° LP 45° LP

RHCP ON OFF ON (a)

y y y y
LHCP OFF ON ON
z x z x z x z x

z Bottom layer
y
x
0° 45° 90° 135°
(b)
y y y y
z x z x z x z x

Top layer
(a)
y y 0° y 0° 0° 45° 90° 135°
z x z x z x (c)
D4 D4
180° D1 D2 0° 180° D1 D2 0° Fig. 2. E-field distribution of the antenna at 2.4 GHz with bias circuit
D3 D3 under different polarization states: (a) LPs, (b) RHCP, and (c) LHCP.
Capacitor
0° LP 180° 90° LP 180° 45° LP
y 90° y 0° y
D5

z x D z x D F1 R1
5 I 5 D4 z x D1
I R2
180° D1 D2 0° 270° I 90°
D3 D6 D3
I D6

270° RHCP 180° LHCP Wb

(b)
Fig. 1. (a) A passive crossed bowtie-shaped dipole antenna, and (b) Lb Wr D4
principle of switching polarization states. DC line
D2
F2
L3 Inductor
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY Wp L2 D6
Top layer
A. Antenna Configuration and Operation Mechanism Bottom layer L1
Inductor

In this paper, the crossed dipole structure is employed due (a)

to many advantages compared to the aforementioned
Top layer
structures in Section I. Firstly, CP generation is Hs
straightforward through the transition rings [31]. This z
Bottom
geometry also avoids reconfigurable feeding network as in [4, y
DC cables layer
x Hc
20-25], thereby significantly reducing the structure
complexity. Secondly, wideband CP operation can be Wg

achieved by producing another CP resonance band at higher

frequencies. This resonance is typically excited by the
couplings between tapered dipole arms [32–34] or by adding Controlling Circuit

parasitic elements [35, 36]. To provide enough space for the (b)
biasing network required in any reconfigurable antenna, the Fig. 3. Detailed design of the proposed polarization reconfigurable
method of using bowtie dipoles [32] is applied in this paper. antenna: (a) top view; (b) side view. For stable measurement, RF chokes
Finally, the antenna polarization can be reconfigured simply can be added to the controlling circuit. The design parameters of the final
structure are: R1 = 1.5, R2 = 2.3, Wr = 0.8, Wb = 24, Lb = 23.3, L1 = 4.7, L2
by controlling the current paths among each dipole arm. = 3.5, L3 = 4, Wp = 1.5, Wg = 95, Hc = 32, Hs = 1.5 (unit: mm).
The geometry of a wideband crossed bowtie dipole antenna
is depicted in Fig. 1(a). The primary radiator consists of two employing three pairs of PIN diodes, denoted as (D 1, D2), (D3,
bowtie-shaped dipoles arranged orthogonally through double D4) and (D5, D6) as shown in Fig. 1(b). The four diodes D1,
squared rings. Each pair of orthogonal arms is placed on one D2, D3, and D4 are located between the dipole arms and
side of a Roger Duroid 4003 substrate (relative permittivity εr feeding points (F1 and F2). The pairs of diodes (D1, D2) and
= 3.38) and excited by 50-Ω coaxial cable through double (D3, D4) are used to route the current in the horizontal and
feeding points at F1 and F2. vertical directions, respectively. The other two diodes D5 and
The reconfigurability of the proposed design is obtained by D6 are inserted into the center of the double ring, which

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2017.2766439, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
3

TABLE II
KEY PARAMETERS STUDY OF THE PROPOSED RECONFIGURABLE ANTENNA

Thickness of substrate, Hs Size of feeding patches, R1 Bowtie’s width, Wb Size of connecting ring, R2
0 0 0 0
1.0 mm 1.1 mm
1.5 mm 1.5 mm
2.0 mm 1.9 mm 20 mm 2.0 mm
2.5 mm 24 mm 2.3 mm
28 mm 2.6 mm
|S11| (dB)

|S11| (dB)

|S11| (dB)
|S11| (dB)
-10 -10 -10 -10
0° LP

-20 -20 -20 -20

1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

0 0 0 0
1.0 mm
1.5 mm 1.1 mm
2.0 mm 1.5 mm 20 mm 2.0 mm
2.5 mm 1.9 mm 24 mm 2.3 mm
28 mm 2.6 mm
|S11| (dB)

|S11| (dB)

|S11| (dB)

|S11| (dB)
-10 -10 -10 -10
45° LP

-20 -20 -20 -20

1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

0 12 0 9 0 9 0 9
1.0 mm 1.1 mm 20 mm
1.5 mm 2.0 mm
1.5 mm 24 mm 2.3 mm
2.0 mm 1.9 mm 28 mm 2.6 mm
2.5 mm 9
-10 -10 6 -10 6 -10 6

|S11| (dB)
|S11| (dB)

|S11| (dB)
|S11| (dB)

AR (dB)
AR (dB)

AR (dB)
AR (dB)

6
RHCP -20 3 -20 3 -20 3
-20
3

-30 0 -30 0 -30 0 -30 0

1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

control the signal flowing from one arm to the other DC power supply controlling circuit.
orthogonal arm through the connecting ring. The structure is reflected by a square metallic cavity to
By switching the states of three pairs of diodes (D1, D2), improve the antenna gain (Fig. 3(b)). The distance between the
(D3, D4), and (D5, D6), five different polarization modes can be radiator and the cavity (Hc) is chosen as a quarter-wavelength
realized, as illustrated in Fig. 1(b) and Table I. For LP at the lower frequency band. This is due to the fact that the
operation, (D5, D6) is kept inactive. Horizontal and vertical LP performance at lower band is more sensitive to the variation of
states are achieved by exciting the corresponding dipoles. The Hc. The chosen PIN diodes are of type MA4SPS402 with
45o LP is obtained by simultaneously exciting two dipoles. forward bias resistance of RPIN = 5 Ω and reverse bias
The CP operation is realized when the two square rings act as capacitance of CPIN = 0.045 pF [37]. These values have also
connecting lines. Due to the rotational symmetry of the been validated by measurement in the frequency band from
structure, the sense of CP radiation can be adjusted by 2 GHz to 4 GHz. The measured insertion loss of the practical
choosing a proper order of exciting the dipole arms. For PIN diode using TRL calibration method [38] in ON state is
example, if the horizontal dipole is excited first by activating about 0.5 to 0.6 dB which is very close to the simulated
(D1, D2) and (D5, D6), the antenna will produce RHCP. The results. In addition, the measured and simulated isolations in
antenna operation can be confirmed from the simulated OFF state are both better than 20 dB.
electric field distribution shown in Fig. 2.
III. KEY PARAMETER STUDY AND DESIGN PROCEDURE
B. Bias Network and Final Realization
In order to independently control the three pairs of PIN Due to the large numbers of states and parameters, in order
diodes, a bias network needs to be carefully designed. A to obtain an effective design procedure, a key-parameter study
possible configuration of the bias network is demonstrated in is carried out first to identify the effect of each parameter on
Fig. 3. Eight 350-nH surface mount inductors acting as RF the antenna performance. It is noted that the effects of the PIN
diodes have been included in the simulation process using
chokes are adopted: four of them are connected to the dipole
Ansys HFSS simulator. Practical PIN diode’s equivalent
arms while the others are connected to the transition rings. In
circuit (see Section II.B) has been used rather than an ideal
addition, four 100-pF chip capacitors are inserted into the
open/short transmission line.
double square rings to block the DC currents while keeping
the RF continuity. The diodes’ anodes are linked to six A. Key Parameter Study
vertically oriented DC cables. The other ends of the DC cables Since the behaviors of two horizontal and vertical LP states
pass through the holes in the cavity and finally connect to the (0° and 90°) or two CP states (RH and LH) against parameter

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Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
4

10

Gain (dBi)
6
45° LP (Sim.)
45° LP (Mea.)
4 0° LP (Sim.)
0° LP (Mea.)
90° LP (Sim.)
90° LP (Mea.)
2

0
1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
Fig. 4. Photograph of the fabricated antenna. The other two orthogonal Frequency (GHz)
arms are printed on the other side of the substrate.
(a)
0
9 10

8
-10

Axial ratio (dB)

|S11| (dB)

Gain (dBi)
RHCP (Sim.) 6
RHCP (Mea.)
-20 0° LP (Sim.) RHCP (Sim.) LHCP (Sim.)
0° LP (Mea.) RHCP (Mea.) LHCP (Mea.)
45° LP (Sim.) LHCP (Sim.) 4
45° LP (Mea.) LHCP (Mea.) 3
90° LP (Sim.)
90° LP (Mea.)
-30 2
1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)
(a) (b) 0 0
1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
Fig. 5. Simulated and measured S11 of the proposed antenna: (a) LP states Frequency (GHz)
and (b) CP states. (b)
Fig. 6. Simulated and measured AR, and total broadside gain of the
variations are similar, the antenna characteristics of 0° LP, proposed antenna: (a) LP states and (b) CP states.
45° LP and RHCP are chosen for demonstration. In the
1.0
following study, each considered parameter is varied while
keeping all other parameters constant as listed in Fig. 3.
0.8
1) Thickness of substrate, Hs
Efficiency

The first column of Table II shows the reflection

coefficients and AR for different values of substrate thickness 0° LP (Sim.)
0° LP (Mea.)
0.6
Hs. It can be seen that the impedance BWs of 0° LP and 45° LP (Sim.)
45° LP (Mea.)
RHCP are improved by decreasing the substrate thickness. RHCP (Sim.)
RHCP (Mea.)
The opposite trend is observed for the 45° LP state. These
0.4
results show that this parameter is helpful for the optimization 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
of the overlapped impedance BW. Although varying Hs affects Frequency (GHz)

the AR BW, the AR performance can be adjusted by other
parameters.
2) Size of feeding square patches, R1
Since this parameter controls the couplings between the
dipoles’ arms and the coaxial couple, its value mainly affects
the antenna’s reflection coefficients, which can be confirmed
in Table II, second column. Based on these results, R1 can be
used as a trade-off between the reflection coefficients of LP
states and CP states.
3) Bowtie’s width, Wb
The bowtie’s width Wb controls the bowtie’s flare angle
which plays an important role in achieving the wideband
characteristics. For 0° LP and 45° LP states, better matching
condition was attained with the increase of Wb; however, this
results in a smaller bandwidth (Table II, third column). From
the CP operation perspective, the bowtie’s flare angle is a
critical parameter to achieve wideband operation as
demonstrated in [32]. Further simulation indicates that if Wb is
in the range from 20 to 25 mm (flare angle from 44° to 56°),
Fig. 7. Simulated and measured efficiency of the antenna
the proposed design can yield satisfactory performances for all
polarization states.
4) Size of connecting ring, R2
The function of the connecting ring’s size R2 is to extend the
length of the dipole and create two orthogonal bowtie dipoles
with different lengths. Due to the phase delay between these
two dipoles, CP waves can be excited [31]. Thus, minimal
changes were observed in Table II, last column for the LP
results when varying R2. On the contrary, decreasing R2
considerably improves the reflection coefficient but degrades
the CP performance. Thus, R2 could be an important parameter
for optimizing the impedance and AR BWs under CP modes
while keeping the performance of LP states unchanged.
B. Design Procedure
Based on the parametric study, a design procedure to
optimize the design is suggested as follows:

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(dBi) co-pol (mea.) RHCP (mea.)

0 co-pol (sim.) 0 0 0 RHCP (sim.) 0
10 330 x-pol (mea.) 330 330 30 330 30
LHCP (mea.) 330
30 x-pol (sim.) 30 LHCP (sim.) 30
0
300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60
-10
-20
-30 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90

-20
-10 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120
0
210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150
10
0 º LP 45 º LP 90 º LP RHCP LHCP
(a) x-z plane
(dBi) co-pol (mea.) RHCP (mea.)
0 co-pol (sim.) 0 0 0 RHCP (sim.) 0
10 330 x-pol (mea.) 330 330 30 330 LHCP (mea.) 330
30
30 x-pol (sim.) 30 30 LHCP (sim.)
0
300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60
-10
-20
-30 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90

-20
-10 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120
0
210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150
10
0 º LP 45 º LP 90 º LP RHCP LHCP
(b) y-z plane
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured gain radiation patterns of the antenna at 2.4 GHz.
(dBi) co-pol (mea.) RHCP (mea.)
0 co-pol (sim.) 0 0 0 RHCP (sim.) 0
10 330 x-pol (mea.) 330 330 330 LHCP (mea.) 330
30 x-pol (sim.) 30 30 30 LHCP (sim.) 30
0
300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60
-10
-20
-30 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90

-20
-10 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120
0
210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150
10
0 º LP 45 º LP 90 º LP RHCP LHCP
(a) x-z plane
(dBi) co-pol (mea.) RHCP (mea.)
0 co-pol (sim.) 0 0 0 RHCP (sim.) 0
10 330 x-pol (mea.) 330 330 30 330 LHCP (mea.) 330
30 x-pol (sim.) 30 30 LHCP (sim.) 30
0
300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60 300 60
-10
-20
-30 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90 270 90

-20
-10 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120 240 120
0
210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150 210 150
10
0 º LP 45 º LP 90 º LP RHCP LHCP
(b) y-z plane
Fig. 9. Simulated and measured gain radiation patterns of the antenna at 3.0 GHz.
Step 0: Initialize the values of each parameter such that: reasonable BWs.
 Hc is close to a quarter wavelength at the lower Step 4: Tune R2 to have both satisfactory AR and S 11 of CP
frequency band. modes.
 R1 is larger than the outer radius of coaxial cable. Step 5: Final-tune all parameters for an optimized design.
 R2 is slightly larger than R1.
 The bowtie’s length, 2Lb, is about half-wavelength IV. MEASURED RESULTS
at center frequency of lower band. The proposed wideband polarization reconfigurable antenna
 The bowtie’s width, Wb, is chosen so that the was fabricated as depicted in Fig. 4 and then validated by
bowtie’s flare angle is about 45°. measurement. The reflection coefficients of all states are
Step 1: Choose an appropriate value of substrate thickness presented in Fig. 5. A good agreement is observed between
(Hs) and substrate permittivity (εr). At the early measurement and simulation. The antenna yielded wide
stages, we only need to consider the S11 measured –10-dB impedance bandwidths of 37.1% from
characteristics of the LP and CP states. 2.2 GHz to 3.2 GHz for all polarization states. For the AR
Step 2: Optimize the size of the feeding patch (R1) as a response in broadside direction, the measurement yielded an
trade-off between S11 of LP modes and S11 of CP AR BW of 50.6% (2.05–3.44 GHz) for both RHCP and LHCP
modes. At this stage, one should have reasonable modes, as illustrated in Fig. 6(b). Small discrepancies between
results for S11 in all states. the measured and simulated results are attributed to the
Step 3: Optimize the bowtie’s width or flare angle. Adjust fabrication errors and tolerances of the switching and biasing
Wb to realize the best CP operation BW while devices. It can be concluded that the proposed antenna is
checking S11 BWs of LP states such that they have capable of generating five different polarizations with wide

0018-926X (c) 2017 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.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2017.2766439, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
6

TABLE III
PERFORMANCE COMPARISON WITH REPORTED POLARIZATION RECONFIGURABLE ANTENNAS

Polarization States No. of No. of Control Overlapped Max. Gain

Reference Structure Feeding Network
CP LP Diodes Voltages BW
[2] Crossed dipole 2 N/A No 4 2 10.1% 8.1 dBi
[3] Loop antenna 2 N/A No 2 2 12.7% 8.0 dBi
[4] Wheel-shaped antenna 2 N/A Yes 16 2 23.5% 4.8 dBi
[14] Patch antenna 2 1 Yes 3 3 16.4% 8.4 dBi
[16] ME dipole 2 1 No 4 2 16.0% 9.0 dBi
[23] Patch antenna 2 2 Yes 6 5 3.3% 4.5 dBi
[24] Patch antenna 2 2 Yes 8 4 1.5% 8.1 dBi
[26] Patch array antenna 2 2 Yes 4 4 17.5% 10.3 dBi
[27] ME dipole 2 2 No 8 4 3.6% 8.8 dBi
[29] Patch antenna 2 3 No 6 4 1.1% N/G
[39] Dipole antenna N/A 4 No 8 4 34% 5.2 dBi
Proposed Crossed dipole 2 3 No 6 3 37.1% 8.9 dBi

E-field y Bottom layer y Bottom layer

linear states. The simulation also confirms that the antenna
[V/m]
4.0E3 efficiency can be improved if PIN diodes with lower R PIN are
z x z x
3.2E3
used.
The gain radiation patterns at 2.4 GHz and 3.0 GHz for all
2.8E3
states in two principle planes of x-z and y-z are plotted in
1.6E3 Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, respectively. As shown in this figure, the
8.0E2 patterns in both planes are similar to each other and the front-
1.0E0 Top layer 0º LP Top layer 90º LP
to-back ratios are all better than 23 dB. When the antenna
operates with LP at 0° or 90°, either horizontal or vertical
Fig. 10. E-field distribution on the bias lines for PIN diode D5 and D6 at dipole is excited. The other orthogonal dipole acts as a
2.4 GHz. parasitic element and radiates with a small amount of power,
0
0° LP (Sim.) which contributes to increase the cross-polarization (×-pol).
0° LP (Mea.) 90° LP (Sim.)
This issue does not occur for 45° LP realization, thus its ×-pol
×-pol. relative to co-pol. (dB)

45° LP (Sim.) 90° LP (Mea.)

-10
-20
-30
1.6
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured relative cross polarization versus
frequency of three LP modes.
overlapped BW of 37.1%.
The broadside gain of LP and CP realizations are also
depicted in Fig. 6. It is observed that within the overlapped
BW, the measured gains are greater than 6.6 dBi and a
maximum gain of 8.9 dBi can be achieved. Figure 7 shows the
measured and simulated radiation efficiency of the proposed
reconfigurable antenna. The antenna achieves stable efficiency
values of greater than 75% within the overlapped BW (2.2–3.2
GHz). It can be seen that efficiency values for 45° LP and CP
states are less than those of 0° (and 90°) LP realizations. The
reason is that when 45° LP or CP states are excited, 4 diodes
will work simultaneously while only 2 diodes are ON for 0° or
90° LP. Furthermore, the efficiency in case of 45° LP is
slightly larger than that of RHCP. This is due to the fact that
the PIN diode arrangements are different in two cases. The
series connection of PIN diodes to generate CP radiation
causes higher loss than the parallel connection to generate the
45° LP (Mea.)
is significantly lower. In addition, 0° LP operation exhibits
higher ×-pol than 90° LP due to the asymmetry caused by the
DC bias lines for diodes (D5, D6). This is confirmed by
observing the simulated E-field vectors distributed on the bias
lines for these PIN diodes (Fig. 10), which mainly spread on
the vertical direction. Figure 11 shows the frequency
responses of the ×-pol relative to co-polarization (co-pol) for
2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0
three LP modes. The results indicate that although there are
Frequency (GHz) some parasitic radiations, the relative ×-pol values are still less
than -10 dB, -15 dB and -22 dB for LP at 0°, 90°, and 45°,
respectively across the whole operation BW.
Finally, comparisons among reported reconfigurable
antennas and this work are summarized and given in Table III.
It can be concluded that the proposed design exhibits the
largest overlapped BW with five polarization states. The
structure also shows the advantages in high gain and low
complexity with only 6 PIN diodes and 3 control voltages.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a design of a wideband multi-
polarization reconfigurable antenna. The crossed bowtie-
shaped dipoles are adopted for wideband operation and simple
antenna configuration with a single coaxial-line feed. Five
polarization states, including 2 CP and 3 LP states, have been
realized using 3 pairs of PIN diodes and 3 bias voltages. The
measured results have confirmed that the antenna is able to
achieve a wide overlapped bandwidth of 37.1% (2.2–3.2 GHz)
for all polarization modes. Furthermore, a good gain and

0018-926X (c) 2017 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.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2017.2766439, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
radiation efficiency as well as stable radiation patterns across
the entire operation bandwidth are obtained.
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Huy Hung Tran received the B. S. degree in
electronics and telecommunications from Hanoi
University of Science and Technology, Hanoi,
Vietnam, in 2013, and the M. S. degree in electrical
engineering from Ajou University, Suwon, South
Korea, in 2015. He is currently pursuing the Ph. D.
degree in the Department of Electronics and
Electrical Engineering from Dongguk University,
Seoul, South Korea.
His current research interests include circularly
polarized antennas, high gain antennas, metamaterial
based antennas and reconfigurable antennas.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2017.2766439, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
8

Nghia Nguyen-Trong (S’12, M’17) received the
PhD degree in electrical engineering from The
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia, in
2017. He is currently working at The University of
Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia as a
postdoctoral research fellow.
His current research interests include different
types and aspects of leaky-wave antennas,
monopolar antennas, and reconfigurable antennas.
Dr. Nguyen-Trong was one of the recipients of
the undergraduate scholarship from the IEEE MTT-
S in 2012. Based on his academic achievement, he received the Governor’s
International Student of Year of South Australia Award in 2012 and the
University Medal in 2014. He was one of the recipients of the Best Student
Paper Award at the 2014 International Workshop on Antenna Technology. He
also received the First Prize in the Student Paper Competition at the 2015
IEEE MTT-S NEMO Conference and the Best Student Presentation at the
2017 Australian Symposium on Antennas.
Hyun Chang Park (S’84-M’93) received the B.S.
degree in electronics engineering from Seoul
National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1986, and the
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 1989 and 1993,
respectively.
From 1993 to 1995, he was with the University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, as a research associate in
the Department of Electrical Engineering. In 1995, he
joined the faculty of Dongguk University, Seoul,
Korea, where he is currently a Professor in the
Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering. His research interests
include RF energy harvesting, wideband/multi-band planar antennas, and
reconfigurable antennas for various wireless applications.

Tuan Tu Le was born in 1990 and received B.E. in

School of Electronics and Telecommunication from
Hanoi University of science and technology, Hanoi,
Viet Nam in 2013. He now is pursuing doctoral
degree in the Department of Electronics and Electrical
engineering from Dongguk University, Seoul
Campus, Korea.
His current research interests include analysis and
design of monopolar antennas, circularly polarized
antennas, reconfigurable antennas, and multi-
band/broadband planar antennas for various wireless applications.

0018-926X (c) 2017 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.
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