Light Weight MIMO Phased Arrays with Beam Steering Capabilities using RF MEMS

A conceptual design of a MIMO phased antenna array on liquid crystal polymer (LCP) is introduced. Because of the properties of the substrate, the overall design is comparably light weight and semi-flexible to previous MIMO designs. Each input output unit array is capable of steering the beam plusmn6deg in a 1-D space. This beam steer is enabled with the use of a 2-bit reconfigurable phase shifter using RF MEMS. The building blocks of a single input and output has been simulated to prove the concept. In addition, the array can be expanded to beam steer in a 2-D space for each individual unit. Overall, the entire system will be capable of having the beam steering function in multiple directions.