Design of an Anisotropic Reconfigurable Reflective Polarization Converter for Realizing Circular Polarization-Reconfigurable Antenna

A polarization-reconfigurable antenna is presented here with the help of an anisotropic reconfigurable reflective polarization converter (RRPC). Proposed design consists of a monopole antenna as a source and an electronically switchable polarizer. Depending on the conducting states of only eight PIN diodes, which are placed on the top surface of the polarizer, linearly polarized (LP) wave generated by the monopole can be converted into left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP), right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP), and LP wave. Proposed RRPC has a ground plane on the back side and it is positioned below the source antenna with an air gap of 0.13 λ
₀
where λ is calculated at the antenna's operating frequency of 3.5 GHz. Overall configuration of the antenna is compact with a dimension of (0.31×0.31×0.19) λ
₀
³
. As fewer active elements are used in the proposed design, complexity of the circuit for biasing and losses would be less. To the best of authors’ knowledge, it is first time reported work on active reflective polarizer, which not only has LP-to-CP polarization conversion ability but also it possesses electronic polarization switching ability in between LHCP, RHCP, and LP states.