Reconfigurability of Wired Antennas Enabled by Conformal Metasurfaces

The possibilities enabled by conformal cylindrical metasurfaces in modifying the characteristics of wired antennas are discussed. In particular, we show that both the electrical and radiative properties can be tuned by acting only on the electromagnetic response of the augmented wrapping surface. Two relevant examples are presented. First, the design of a dipole antenna made frequency reconfigurable thanks to the control of the surface impedance values of the cylindrical coating is presented. Then, the case of a Huygens metasurface exploited for introducing beamforming functionalities to a single dipole is illustrated.