Two port reconfigurable CRLH leaky wave antenna with improved impedance matching and beam tuning

In this paper we propose a reconfigurable composite right left handed (CRLH) leaky wave antenna as a candidate solution for compact highly reconfigurable MIMO systems. The antenna design consists of a periodic structure composed of cascaded CRLH microstrip unit cells with tunable electrical characteristics. Two separate ports are located on the same antenna structure such that a single physical antenna can be used as a two element array for reduced antenna space occupation on the communication device. The two element array allows for steering two beams symmetrically with respect to the broadside direction over a wide angular range. Ideally an infinite number of radiation patterns can be excited at each port while keeping good impedance matching and high isolation between the two ports. The gain achievable through this antenna varies between 0.7 and 6.2 dBi depending on the array configuration.