Tunable artificial magnetic conductor ground for multiple functions: Antenna bandwidth enhancement, low scattering, and low-profile performance

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

In this article, an innovative method to improve antenna radiation and scattering performance is proposed and demonstrated. By utilizing a tunable artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) as the antenna ground plane, multiple functions can be realized, including antenna bandwidth enhancement, low scattering, and low-profile performance. For the AMC ground, the in-phase reflection band can be tuned by adjusting the varactor diode value loaded on each unit. To improve radiation performance, AMC ground is tuned to dipole antenna working frequency points; thus, the bandwidth is enhanced, exceeding double that of the antenna without AMC (from 2.6 to 4.5 GHz). Meanwhile, the antenna profile is reduced from 20 to 6 mm. To improve scattering performance, the chessboard configuration of the AMC ground is applied to reduce the antenna array’s out-of-band radar cross section. Experimental results demonstrate good agreement with simulations, validating the proposed design. This work provides a new method to improve antenna-related performance and has great promise for future applications.