Electrically Actuated Beam Steering Reconfigurable Vivaldi Antenna With Liquid Metal

In this paper, a beam steering Vivaldi antenna based on the displacement of liquid metal elements is presented. The proposed antenna consists of a Vivaldi antenna, three fluidic channels and three liquid metal elements. In order to control the liquid metal slugs, three fluidic channels are placed in front of Vivaldi antenna's aperture. The antenna's beam can be steered by changing the position of liquid metal slugs. Here, the positioning of liquid metal slugs is achieved by using continuous electrowetting (CEW) actuation. The proposed antenna beam can be steered from -30° to 30°. The antenna operates in the frequency band of 4.8-4.9 GHz. The half power beam width (HPBW) for main lobe in 0°, 10°, 20° and 30° are 38.5°, 25.5°, 21.8°, and 21.1 ° respectively.