Tunable Inverted-F Antenna Using Plasma Technologies

A reconfigurable and tunable inverted-F antenna (IFA) using a plasma technology is proposed. The antenna consists of a cylindrical plasma column supported by two thin conductors and a ground plane. The structure is designed and optimized to achieve a fractional bandwidth of about 10%, while the operating frequency can be tuned between 150 and 270 MHz by changing the plasma excitation power. Results of intensive investigation using numerical simulations show that the height and the feed locations of the antenna have marginal effects on the performance of the proposed antenna. The differences between the proposed structure and a conventional IFA are characterized. It is shown that by increasing the radius of the horizontal part of the antenna, the resonance frequency decreases. However, the dielectric vessel shows no considerable effect on the resonance frequency.