A Magnetoelectric Dipole Antenna With Beamwidth Reconfiguration

This letter proposes a novel magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna with reconfigurable beamwidth characteristic in the E-plane, the H-plane, and both the E- and H-planes. In the proposed antenna, two pairs of tunable parasitic patches are placed in close proximity to the driven ME dipole. A varactor diode is inserted into each parasitic patch, and the mutual coupling between the parasitic patch and the ME dipole is tuned by adjusting the capacitances of the varactor diodes. The beamwidths of the proposed ME dipole antenna in the E-plane and the H-plane can not only be individually tuned but also be simultaneously changed. The designed ME dipole antenna has the tunable E-plane half-power beamwidth (HPBW) from 65 degrees to 120 degrees, the H-plane HPBW from 80 degrees to 120 degrees, and both the E-plane and H-plane HPBWs from 65 degrees to 130 degrees in a frequency band covering 2.0-2.1 GHz. A prototype was fabricated and measured. The good agreement between the measurement and the simulation validate the proposed design.