There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Science and technologies based on terahertz frequency electromagnetic radiation (100 GHz–30 THz) have developed rapidly over the last 30 years. For most of the 20th Century, terahertz radiation, then referred to as sub-millimeter wave or far-infrared radiation, was mainly utilized by astronomers and some spectroscopists. Following the development of laser based terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in the 1980s and 1990s the field of THz science and technology expanded rapidly, to the extent that it now touches many areas from fundamental science to 'real world' applications. For example THz radiation is being used to optimize materials for new solar cells, and may also be a key technology for the next generation of airport security scanners. While the field was emerging it was possible to keep track of all new developments, however now the field has grown so much that it is increasingly difficult to follow the diverse range of new discoveries and applications that are appearing. At this point in time, when the field of THz science and technology is moving from an emerging to a more established and interdisciplinary field, it is apt to present a roadmap to help identify the breadth and future directions of the field. The aim of this roadmap is to present a snapshot of the present state of THz science and technology in 2017, and provide an opinion on the challenges and opportunities that the future holds. To be able to achieve this aim, we have invited a group of international experts to write 18 sections that cover most of the key areas of THz science and technology. We hope that The 2017 Roadmap on THz science and technology will prove to be a useful resource by providing a wide ranging introduction to the capabilities of THz radiation for those outside or just entering the field as well as providing perspective and breadth for those who are well established. We also feel that this review should serve as a useful guide for government and funding agencies.

The 2016 terahertz science and technology roadmap

This communication presents a reconfigurable antenna capable of independently reconfiguring the operating frequency, radiation pattern and polarization A switched grid of small metallic patches, known as pixel surface, is used as a parasitic layer to provide reconfiguration capabilities to existing antennas acting as driven element The parasitic pixel layer presents advantages such as low profile, integrability and cost-effective fabrication A fully operational prototype has been designed, fabricated and its compound reconfiguration capabilities have been characterized The prototype combines a patch antenna and a parasitic pixel surface consisting of 6 $\,\times\,$ 6 pixels, with an overall size of $06 \lambda \times 06 \lambda$ and 60 PIN-diode switches The antenna simultaneously tunes its operation frequency over a 25% frequency range, steers the radiation beam over ${\pm 30^\circ}$ in E and H-planes, and switches between four different polarizations ( ${\mathhat{\rm x}},$ ${\mathhat{\rm y}}$ , LHCP, RHCP) The average antenna gain among the different parameter combinations is 4 dB, reaching 6–7 dB for the most advantageous combinations The distance between the driven and the parasitic layers determines the tradeoff between frequency tuning range (12% to 25%) and radiation efficiency (45% to 55%)

Frequency, radiation pattern and polarization reconfigurable antenna using a parasitic pixel layer

A stub-loaded microstrip patch antenna with reconfigurability in both frequency and polarization is presented. Using 12 varactors with two independent voltages, reconfigurability is achieved in a fractional bandwidth of around 40% while allowing selection between circular polarization (CP) with both rotating senses and linear polarization (LP). The design is optimized based on an analytical model, which significantly speeds up the process while yielding reasonably accurate predictions. For illustration of the concept, an antenna is designed, optimized, and manufactured for reconfigurable operation in the 2.4–3.6 GHz frequency range. A good agreement between simulations and measurements is obtained which validates the proposed method. A full reconfigurability is demonstrated in the operation band with the ability to both tune the antenna to a given frequency and select a polarization state among left-hand or right-hand CP or various states of LP.

A Frequency- and Polarization-Reconfigurable Stub-Loaded Microstrip Patch Antenna

Reconfigurable antennas play important roles in smart and adaptive systems and are the subject of many research studies. They offer several advantages such as multifunctional capabilities, minimized volume requirements, low front-end processing efforts with no need for a filtering element, good isolation, and sufficient out-of-band rejection; these make them well suited for use in wireless applications such as fourth generation (4G) and fifth generation (5G) mobile terminals. With the use of active materials such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), varactor or p-i-n (PIN) diodes, an antenna’s characteristics can be changed through altering the current flow on the antenna structure. If an antenna is to be reconfigurable into many different states, it needs to have an adequate number of active elements. However, a large number of high-quality active elements increases cost, and necessitates complex biasing networks and control circuitry. We review some recently proposed reconfigurable antenna designs suitable for use in wireless communications such as cognitive-ratio (CR), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), ultra-wideband (UWB), and 4G/5G mobile terminals. Several examples of antennas with different reconfigurability functions are analyzed and their performances are compared. Characteristics and fundamental properties of reconfigurable antennas with single and multiple reconfigurability modes are investigated.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/8/2/128/pdf

Recent Developments of Reconfigurable Antennas for Current and Future Wireless Communication Systems

This paper presents a multi-polarization reconfigurable antenna with four dipole radiators for biomedical applications in body-centric wireless communication system (BWCS). The proposed multi-dipole antenna with switchable 0°, +45°, 90° and −45° linear polarizations is able to overcome the polarization mismatching and multi-path distortion in complex wireless channels as in BWCS. To realize this reconfigurable feature for the first time among all the reported antenna designs, we assembled four dipoles together with 45° rotated sequential arrangements. These dipoles are excited by the same feeding source provided by a ground tapered Balun. A metallic reflector is placed below the dipoles to generate a broadside radiation. By introducing eight PIN diodes as RF switches between the excitation source and the four dipoles, we can control a specific dipole to operate. As the results, 0°, +45°, 90° and −45° linear polarizations can be switched correspondingly to different operating dipoles. Experimental results agree with the simulation and show that the proposed antenna well works in all polarization modes with desirable electrical characteristics. The antenna has a wide impedance bandwidth of 34% from 2.2 to 3.1 GHz (for the reflection coefficient ${\leq}$ −10 dB) and exhibits a stable cardioid-shaped radiation pattern across the operating bandwidth with a peak gain of 5.2 dBi. To validate the effectiveness of the multi-dipole antenna for biomedical applications, we also designed a meandered PIFA as the implantable antenna. Finally, the communication link measurement shows that our proposed antenna is able to minimize the polarization mismatching and maintains the optimal communication link thanks to its polarization reconfigurability.

Multi-Polarization Reconfigurable Antenna for Wireless Biomedical System

A compact multiband antenna system using a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is presented in this paper. Designed to be integrated in a tablet, it is not only heavily miniaturized (λ0/15×λ0/38×λ0/94 at 800 MHz), but also able to cover three frequency bands for different wireless applications (DVB-H, WiFi and WiMAX). Since a reconfigurable radiation pattern can result in an improved quality and reliability of wireless links, two DRAs have been integrated to implement this feature on the three frequency bands. These improvements are demonstrated by the presentation of the correlation coefficient and the effective diversity gain, both measured in a reverberation chamber. The experimental measurements are in very good agreement with the simulated ones. Good overall performances are obtained, and the requirements of all three applications are perfectly met. Moreover, the antenna operative frequencies are independent of the ground plane dimensions, making this system a very good candidate for all kinds of mobile devices.

Compact and Multiband Dielectric Resonator Antenna With Pattern Diversity for Multistandard Mobile Handheld Devices

A novel cuboid quadrifilar helical antenna (QHA) with polarization and pattern reconfigurabilities is presented. The proposed antenna consists of a reconfigurable radiator and a switchable feeding network. The radiator combines two individual QHAs in a cuboid, which can be alternatively activated. The feeding network provides switchable quadrature excitations to the radiator. By controlling the p-i-n diodes on the radiator and the feeding network, four working states including both polarization and pattern agilities are achieved. The polarization of the antenna can be switched between two orthogonal circular polarizations, and the radiation pattern can be changed between broadside and backfire modes. A prototype designed to operate at 0.9 GHz band is developed and measured. The measured results validated that the antenna achieved the four working states with stable wide-beam radiation patterns. Moreover, the proposed antenna obtained wide impedance and axial-ratio bandwidths (36.2% and 22%, respectively) in a compact size ( $0.26\lambda _{0}\times 0.26\lambda _{0}\times 0.25\lambda _{0}$ ). The proposed antenna which has attractive electrical characteristics can be applied to various wireless communications, e.g., RFID readers, subway, and railway communications.

Polarization and Pattern Reconfigurable Cuboid Quadrifilar Helical Antenna

This paper presents an ultracompact antenna design suited for digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) reception devices. The DVB-H frequency band is ranging from 4 70 to 862 MHz and divided in 49 channels of 8 MHz. Designed to be integrated in a tablet, it is not only heavily miniaturized (λ0 /49 × λ0/71 ×λ0/160 at 470 MHz), but also able to cover each channel thanks to the use of a magneto-dielectric material. The advantage of using such a material is studied and described in this paper. Moreover, the operating frequency is continuously tuned over the whole DVB-H band by the integration of a varactor diode. This varactor diode has been characterized and modeled to properly cosimulate its behavior within the antenna. Limitations in terms of accepted power by the diode are emphasizing. Finally, the antenna design, including both magneto-dielectric material and varactor diode is integrated in the DVB-H receiver device. Measurement performances are presented and discussed.

/pdf/frequency-tunable-antenna-using-a-magneto-dielectric-3cq3ufgq2l.pdf

Frequency Tunable Antenna Using a Magneto-Dielectric Material for DVB-H Application

Low-loss Ni-Zn porous ferrite ceramics have been obtained (porosity close to 40%) after appropriate heat treatment and shaping of nanosized powders. The key point in this process is a moderate reaction sintering that promotes desired value of porosity. Measured complex permeabilities and permittivities in the [107 Hz -1010 Hz] frequency range are presented. The developed materials show almost constant refractive index value n close to 5 up to 900 MHz. The sum of the magnetic and dielectric losses shows moderate values up to a frequency value f, unusual for spinel ferrites: tanδμ+tanδe <; 0.083 at f=600 MHz. Their efficiency for miniaturization and performances improvement of several new antennas for Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) devices (frequency ranging: 470-862 MHz) are presented. High miniaturizations (about 40% to 60% when compared to not loaded antenna) are obtained. Low loss, wide bandwidth and good radiation efficiency are measured. Antennas performances are enhanced. A new antenna is also presented. Its dimensions are very small and it covers the entire DVB-H band. Suitability of Ni-Zn porous ferrites ceramics for antenna miniaturization for DVB-H applications is demonstrated.

Laure Huitema

Papers

Multi-Polarization Reconfigurable Antenna for Wireless Biomedical System

Compact and Multiband Dielectric Resonator Antenna With Pattern Diversity for Multistandard Mobile Handheld Devices

Polarization and Pattern Reconfigurable Cuboid Quadrifilar Helical Antenna

Frequency Tunable Antenna Using a Magneto-Dielectric Material for DVB-H Application

Suitability of Ni-Zn Ferrites Ceramics With Controlled Porosity as Granular Substrates for Mobile Handset Miniaturized Antennas