Compact Metamaterial Antenna for Angular Localization of Radio-frequency Sources

Localization of radio-frequency sources is commonly carried out by adjusting the radiation patterns of phased arrays to scan a specific region. This task could be difficult and expensive to implement in some frequency regimes of the last generation of communication systems. We present an alternative to the classical Radio-frequency angular localization based on a single port compact metamaterial antenna. We use a finite periodic array of sub-wavelength (λ/6) resonators for the design of this antenna. We show that the proposed antenna is able to achieve several complex radiation patterns over a specific narrow frequency band. We implement numerical methods to estimate the direction of a target antenna by taking benefits of the complex frequency signatures over this band. We demonstrate experimentally in the microwave regime that a single port antenna made of a finite array of metamaterial resonators can be used to retrieve the incident direction.