Modeling of a PIN diode RF switch for reconfigurable antenna application

Abstract

The paper presents a procedure to model a PIN diode RF switch using a fullwave EM solver, HFSS. It utilizes the switch to build a simple partial ground plane antenna with an omnidirectional radiation pattern. The proposed antenna has the ability to tune the frequency from the ultra-wideband to narrowband mode. The frequency reconfigurability is accomplished by incorporating a rectangular slot resonator and a PIN diode RF switch embedded in the partial ground plane. The antenna demonstrates -10 dB impedance bandwidth from 500 MHz to 6 GHz in the ultra-wideband mode and 1.125 GHz to 2 GHz in the narrowband mode. A parasite is stacked in the ground plane to improve the impedance matching, and a rectangular slot is fused to explore the bandwidth-limiting possibility of the antenna. The optimization of the antenna is done by a full-wave EM solver, HFSS; moreover, Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of the antenna is examined using the equivalent flat tissue phantom. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated, and execution is accepted by measured results. The proposed antenna has a simple and miniature structure, low SAR (0.41 W/kg), an omnidirectional pattern, and low cross polarization (