Description

This first-of-its-kind book introduces you to the basic concepts and wide range of potential applications of switched parasitic antennas, including smart antennas for wireless communications. The book's clear, detailed discussion of design rules for both wire and patch antenna structures, together with their circuit requirements, gives you the knowledge you need to successfully design and implement low-cost, small, switched parasitic antennas for a variety of uses.

Presenting information typically not found in other books, the authors explore the numerous advantages of these antennas - including high-speed signal acquisition, fixed input impedance, low loss, and small footprint. You're then provided with practical design examples, strategies, and optimization methods for designing economical switched parasitic antennas for applications such as direction finding and multi-beam communications systems. Cutting-edge technologies and applications such as MEMs RF switches, picocellular communications, and intelligent vehicles are also discussed. The book is supplemented with 233 illustrations and 217 equations.

Table of Contents

Preface.

Smart Antennas  

Introduction.

Tracking Radio Sources.

Antenna Control Systems.

Wire Antenna Theory

Radiation from a Wire Element.

Fourier Transform Techniques.

Mutual Coupling Between Wire Elements.

Monopole Antennas on a Finite Ground Plane.

Bandwidth of Wire Antennas.

Simple Parasitic Wire Antennas.

Wire Element Phased Arrays.

Dual Band Wire Antennas.

Dual Band Switched Parasitic Wire Antennas.

Patch Antenna Theory 

Radiation from a Patch Antenna.

Mutual Coupling Between Patch Elements.

Simple Parasitic Patch Antennas.

Switched Parasitic Patch Antennas.

Patch Element Phased Arrays.

Dual Polarization Patch Antennas.

Design Examples of Switched  Parasitic Antennas

Historical Survey.

Circular Wire Antenna Array.

Multiple Beam Wire Array.

Switched Parasitic and Switched Active Wire Arrays.

Dielectric Coated and Dielectric Resonator Antennas.

Tin-Can Antenna. Parabolic Antenna Beam Steering.

Antenna Optimization 

Sequential Uniform Sampling.

Monte Carlo Method.

The Simplex Method.

The Gradient Method.

Genetic Algorithms.

Stimulated Annealing.

Discussion and Conclusions.

Performance Limitations

Introduction.

Switching Circuits for Switched Parasitic Antennas.

New Technologies and New Applications

Conclusions.