Received April 21, 2019, accepted May 6, 2019, date of publication May 15, 2019, date of current version

May 30, 2019.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2917145

Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

SOUREN SHAMSINEJAD 1 , (Student Member, IEEE),
NABIL KHALID 1 , (Student Member, IEEE),
FATEMEH M. MONAVAR 1 , (Student Member, IEEE),
SHILA SHAMSADINI1 , (Senior Member, IEEE),
RASHID MIRZAVAND 1,2 , (Senior Member, IEEE),
GHOLAMREZA MORADI 2 , (Senior Member, IEEE),
AND PEDRAM MOUSAVI 1 , (Senior Member, IEEE)
1 Intelligent Wireless Technology Laboratory, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
2 Electrical Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran 15914, Iran
Corresponding author: Nabil Khalid ([email protected])
This work was supported by the NSERC-AITF Industrial Research Chair Program.

ABSTRACT In this paper, a cubical 3D folded slot antenna array with reconfigurable radiation pattern is
reported. The proposed antenna is capable of switching between omnidirectional and broadside radiation
pattern. The hollow nature of the design is beneficial for applications such as wireless sensor networks,
where electronic circuits can be installed inside the antenna, producing a small overall packaged device.
A robust feeding mechanism is also proposed that utilizes electronic switches to shift between the two offered
radiation patterns, namely, omnidirectional and directional. A cubic prototype at 2.4 GHz having a gain
of 2.85 dBi and 4.2 dBi along with input matching bandwidth of 21% and 2.7%, for the omnidirectional
and broadside radiation case, respectively, has been presented. Whereas, the final antenna dimensions are
39.5×39.25×30 mm3 . 3D and printable nature of the architecture makes the antenna a good candidate for
the industry.

INDEX TERMS 3D printable antenna, reconfigurable antenna, cubic antenna, slot array.

I. INTRODUCTION them from harsh environmental conditions along with strong

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has gained significant RF interferences or electron bombardment in the space.
attention in multitude of applications requiring monitoring of Sensory nodes can be installed in rural areas with strong
certain important parameters such as temperature, humidity, direct link or urban areas with dominant multipath propa-
luminance, gas etc. This information helps in performing gation, due to presence of obstacles. As long as the nodes
certain tasks more effectively, resulting in improved user are installed at the same height, in both cases, the distri-
experience, such as at home, in industry automation or even bution of angle of arrivals is concentrated around horizon.
body care [1]–[3]. Antenna in a WSN is one of the most vital Hence an omnidirectional radiation pattern in the azimuth
component as its limitation, such as low gain and coverage plane that offers enough gain in the plane would be a great
area, can highly limit the performance of the sensor. A major choice to connect the nodes. However, usually a sky commu-
engineering milestone would be to design an antenna that nication link to the gateway or base station installed in tall
receives in all directions while providing maximum gain in tower, a drone or even a satellite, where most of the signal
any required direction. An antenna-in-package with conduc- is received from broadside, demands a different radiation
tive body and slot for radiation [4], offers a promising solu- pattern. Hence, employing a reconfigurable antenna with
tion as it can be engineered to have reconfigurable radiation capabilities of switching to directional radiation pattern can
patterns. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity to place serve the purpose.
electronic circuits inside the package and thus protecting A lot of research has been conducted on investigating
pattern reconfigurable antennas [5]–[11]. A good example
is the research carried on developing reconfigurable anten-
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and
nas for WLAN. For example, in [5], rhombus-like patch
approving it for publication was Kwok L. Chung. antennas in an array with parasitic elements along with PIN

2169-3536
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 S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

FIGURE 1. Proposed antenna (a) isometric view (upper figure) and Top view (bottom figure) (b) Flattened view of
cubic antenna (T and B represents Top and Bottom faces, respectively. Arrows indicate the edges connected when in
cubic form).

diodes as RF switches, are used to design an antenna hav- perfect candidate for low-cost 3D printed technologies. Third,
ing reconfigurable radiation pattern at 5.2 GHz. Similarly, the proposed design, allows the antenna to house electronics
a planar antenna array with PIN diodes is proposed in [6] circuitry inside itself. The antenna operates at 2.4 GHz and
that utilizes L-shaped quarter-wavelength slot at 2.4 GHz. is compatible with most of WSN technologies, such as Heart
Moreover, in [7], a planar antenna that can be configured to and ZigBee.
generate omnidirectional or directional radiation pattern at The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
3.8 GHz, is proposed. 3D folded slot antennas are employed In section II we discuss the details of our antenna design.
in [8] and [9] to design antenna-in-packages whose inner While, section III is dedicated to antenna fabrication and
space can be used for installing transceiver circuits. How- comparing measurement and simulation results. Finally,
ever, very little research is done on reconfigurable 3D anten- the paper is concluded in section IV.
nas. In [12], a cubic slot antenna is proposed that uses PIN
diodes to short-circuit the slots and provide reconfigurability. II. ANTENNA DESIGN
This design, however, is heavily influenced by the resonance Our designed antenna integrates two different types of anten-
inside the cube, which limits its use for housing electronics nas, namely folded slot antenna and patch antenna. Therefore,
inside itself. A partitioned waveguide utilizing multimodes to to help reduce the design ambiguities, geometry aspects are
achieve reconfigurability is presented in [13]. discussed first. Following that, we discuss the working prin-
In this work, we propose a cubic antenna with ciple of our proposed antenna.
reconfigurable radiation pattern which can switch between
omnidirectional and directional radiation patterns. The con- A. GEOMETRY
tribution of the proposed work is threefold. First, the proposed Structure of the proposed antenna is cube-shaped and thus it
antenna consists of a set of simple folded slots [14], that has six different faces, as shown in Fig. 1. The faces normal
are wrapped around a cubic structure and act as radiator or to z-axes are considered as top/bottom faces and consists of
transmission line, based on the mode of operation. Different the patch antennas. While the side walls have folded slot
modes are excited by changing states of switches, embedded antennas at every face. For excitation of the antenna, a co-
in the antenna body, to generate the desired radiation pattern. planar waveguide (CPW) feed is used on the ‘-Y’ face, which
In mode 1, constructive in-phase radiation from the walls also enables the realization of the slots, Fig. 1. The patch
produce a horizontally polarized omnidirectional radiation on the top/bottom face of the cube has a width of PatchW
pattern in the azimuth plane. In mode 2, the antenna generates surrounded by a small ring slot (SlotWZ ), in between the
broadside radiation pattern with moderately high gain in patch and the substrate of the adjacent face. The ground
the top or bottom faces of the cube using the respective plane beneath the patch has width of GNDWW . Whereas,
simple patch antennas. Second, the flexible control of beams on the side walls, the folded slots being used, have width
along with the proposed simple feeding mechanism, made of SlotWZ. Given their type, these antennas provide linear
possible through a CPW line, makes the proposed antenna a polarization. To enable different modes of operation, different

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S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

antennas are activated using switches namely, SW1 and SW2. edge length were properly tuned and optimized. It was found
The SW1 connects/disconnects the center signal line of the that by having common mode slot pairs instead of single
slot pairs to the top or bottom patches. Whereas, SW2 Con- slots, radiation was balanced in all four slots, especially the
nects patch ground plane to the rest of the cube body, when slot on ‘-Y’ face which is directly excited through a CPW
required. line. Apart from balancing the radiation on all the four faces,
the added conductor provides the opportunity to make the
B. ANTENNA OPERATION cube a reconfigurable antenna.
1) MODE 1 (OMNIDIRECTIONAL PATTERN)
In this mode, all vertical slot pairs, on side walls of the 2) MODE 2 (DIRECTIONAL PATTERN)
cube, are excited in-phase to achieve constructive interfer- In this mode, a directional radiation pattern in either top or
ence in the azimuth plane. This mode generates the desired bottom side can be generated. This is achieved by excit-
omnidirectional radiation pattern. The operation of antennas ing only one patch antenna at a time, while, the other
in this mode can be explained by considering an array of patch antenna is disconnected by turning off one of the two
four radiating elements in the XY-plane and spaced equally SW1. Moreover, the ground of the unused patch antenna
apart from each other and at distance GW/2 from the origin. is in-addition connected to the body of the cube using the
Detailed treatment on similar antenna arrays can be found SW2 switch to improve the directivity.
in [15]–[17]. Since all the slot antennas are oriented in dif- As the cube allows finite ground plane beneath the active
ferent directions, it should be kept in mind that this peculiar patch antenna, various models were analyzed to study the
behavior must be incorporated in the governing equations. effects of different ground plane sizes on the radiation pattern
A detailed derivation is shown in Appendix. of the antenna. Initially, we modeled a patch antenna with
In order to produce a horizontally polarized omnidirec- finite ground plane. The final antenna was modeled after
tional radiation pattern, in-phase φ-polarized electric fields examining the five subsequent models shown in Table 1. The
(red arrows) should be set up in the azimuth plane of the cubic radiation parameters are compared in Fig. 3.
antenna (Fig. 2). The resulting magnetic current distribution
(blue arrows) is analogous to the magnetic current flow of TABLE 1. Models of the patch antenna.
rectangular slots placed on all four side walls (vertical faces)
of the cube. This current configuration creates maximum
electric field at the center of the slots, resulting in maximum
gain in the azimuth plane. To ensure minimum radiation in
top/bottom of the cube, the electric field should have nulls
on these faces. As evident from Fig. 2, the continuation of
currents to the top and bottom surfaces of the cube will
cause out-of-phase electric fields which conclusively result
in cancellation of radiation along these directions. As shown
in Fig. 2, such a slot magnetic current/electric field config-
uration is easily achieved through wrapping a planar folded
slot array around a cube. Given the fact that radiation needs
to be minimized on top and bottom faces of the cube, and
considering our final goal of reconfigurability, we have cho-
sen two directive radiators on the top and bottom faces of the
cube and kept them in non-radiating mode, when operating in
mode 1 and thus avoid undesired radiation.

FIGURE 2. Designing antenna based on nominal magnetic current and

electric field distribution of planar slot antenna (left) and folded slot
antenna (right). For conventional patches, we can see from Fig. 3 that front
to back ratio, defined as the ratio of gain in front direction
To ensure in-phase radiation from vertical slots on side to the gain in the back direction, along with gain increases
walls of the cube, the length of the slots, along with the cube from model 1 to model 3. The substantial increase in the

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 S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

the parasitic patch is determined by the cube height which has

a significant effect on antenna performance.
Next, we need to verify the feasibility of using the inner
volume of the cube for the placement of electronic circuits.
This can be verified by determining the locations where
E-field is negligible. Results shown in Fig. 4, determined
using full-wave EM simulation reveals that the E-field at the
center of the cube is attenuated by 25 dB of its maximum. This
suggests that a properly shielded circuit kept at the center will
not interfere with the antenna fields and can be used to place
the electronics circuit.

FIGURE 3. Radiation parameters of the models.

density of surface currents on the outer boundary of truncated

ground plane in model 1 is responsible for low gain and
rather poor front to back ratio as was previously proven in
experimental [18] and numerical studies [19], [20]. Whereas,
in model 2 and model 3, the substrate extended beyond the FIGURE 4. Comparison of E-field at different locations inside the antenna.
ground plane attenuates the undesired surface currents to a
higher degree, resulting in higher gain and improved front to
back ratio. 3) FEEDING STRUCTURE AND EXCITATION
As we move on to building our cubic structure, model 3 is In order to simplify the fabrication and offer better perfor-
evolved to model 4 where cube surrounding walls are now mance at potential high frequency applications by added
covered with conductive surface. The appearance of metallic shielding, the antenna is excited through a single layer CPW
walls help to boost front to back ratio owing to cancellation line placed on ‘-Y’ face of the cube which is connected to an
of spurious radiations in the back-lobe regions, however, SMA in this prototype. The neighboring elements are excited
gain drops due to an increase in the level of cross polarized through mutual coupling between the elements and act as the
component (Fig. 3). parasitic array elements, which reduces the complexity of the
It can be seen in Fig. 3, how the values of front to back ratio feeding structure.
in conventional patches of first three models are noticeably The vertical slot pair placed on ‘-Y’ face, switches between
below those of reference model and model 6 which proves common mode (radiating slot mode) and differential mode
that the effect of diffraction from the edges of a finite ground (CPW transmission line mode), to achieve omnidirectional
plane is more pronounced in the back lobe region as already pattern in the azimuth plane in mode 1 and directional pattern
stated in [16]. However, such dramatic effects have been towards top/bottom faces in mode 2, respectively. However,
neutralized to a very good extent in our proposed antenna since a slot antenna exhibits a very high impedance at the
due to the presence of vertical cube walls and the fact that the center, CPW feeding becomes slightly challenging. There-
bottom patch is disconnected and inactive in this mode. This fore, the antenna is fed at the center of ‘-Y’ face, where the
proves how the alternate switching scheme for top and bottom maxima of E-field occurs (Fig. 2). For mode 1 excitation, all
patches serves to produce another key feature in our cubic the switches are kept in off state in order to observe folded
antenna; the bottom patch could be perceived as a parasitic slot antennas.
element which is not radiating by itself, but helps reduce the Electric fields shown by red arrows in Fig. 5 (a) illustrate
diffraction effects and hence lower the intensity of back lobe how vertical slot pair is excited at even mode (common mode)
radiation. Similar effect was also observed in [21]. through a horizontal CPW line. The width of conductor and
In our proposed model, the deactivation of parasitic (bot- gaps as well as transition from the feeding CPW line trans-
tom) patch is done through a switch which can disconnect it verse to the radiating slot have been optimized and tuned
from the surrounding vertical walls (extended ground plane in for an omnidirectional radiation pattern and proper matching.
this mode) to guarantee that the patch performs as a director On the other hand, in mode 2, the vertical slot pair on ‘-Y’ face
(as opposed to reflector when it is connected to the ground is excited in differential mode producing the E-field shown
plane), which eventually helps the top patch antenna to radiate in Fig. 5 (b). In this configuration, one half of the slot pair acts
a more directional beam by suppressing undesired back lobes. as a transmission line connecting the input 50  CPW and the
The distance between active patch (radiator in this mode) and active top/bottom antenna (selected by turning on one of the

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S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

parameters and illustrate how strongly they would affect the

antenna performance.

1) MODE 1 – EFFECT OF SLOT VARIATIONS

Widening the slot(s) on side walls of the cube increases the
characteristic impedance. Fig. 7 represents change in input
matching as the slot width on side walls vary within a 20%
range. It was observed that the original slot width of 5 mm
FIGURE 5. Antenna excitation modes using CPW transmission line, Slot yields an omnidirectional pattern and resonance frequency
pair in (a) common mode (b) differential mode.
of 2.44 GHz where its 10 dB input matching bandwidth
covers the entire 2.4 GHz ISM band. Deviation within 10%
two SW1s). While the other half acts as an open circuit stub, still produced acceptable results, however, further changes
due to the fact that the other SW1 is off. This configuration deteriorates the omnidirectional pattern since it significantly
inherently provides matching of 50  input CPW feed line to disturbs the current distribution on the cube and moves the
high impedance differentially-excited slot pair on ‘-Y’ face. peaks and nulls of electric field from their ideal locations.
As the patch is fed through a high impedance line, an inset
feeding is not required. Moreover, the patch ground plane is
connected to the body of the cube using SW2 switches.
Switches in our design play an important role in enabling
reconfigurability. SW1 is used to connect/disconnect RF
input line to the top or bottom patches, whereas, SW2 con-
nect/disconnect patch ground planes to the cube body.
RF switches are trigged through DC voltage running on RF
lines, where an external bias Tee is used to combine RF and
DC, together on the same line. This allows a single line to be
used for biasing to generate any required mode. Table 2 shows
FIGURE 7. Effect of variation of slot width on reflection coefficient.
required DC voltages at the input to switch between different
modes. While schematic of our biasing network is shown
In mode 1, cube size determines the slot length and thus the
in Fig. 6.
antenna resonant frequency. The parameter GW was swept
TABLE 2. Switch voltages for reconfiguring patterns.
within a 50% range and its effect on directivity, and input
matching was observed. Fig. 8 shows how the resonance
frequency shifts as the length of the slot changes. Although,
the antenna is still matched in the desired band, it was
observed that the radiation pattern was no longer omnidirec-
tional.

FIGURE 8. Effect of variation of slot length on reflection coefficient.

FIGURE 6. Schematic of the biasing network of the antenna.

2) MODE 2 – EFFECT OF TOP/BOTTOM SLOT VARIATIONS
It was observed in the simulations that variations within 40%
C. PARAMETRIC VARIATION of width of Top/Bottom slot (SlotWZ) does not have a pro-
To account for manufacturing tolerance in our proposed found affect on the antenna performance. This is due to the
design, we study the variations of some key geometrical fact that the variation of SlotWZ in terms of wavelength

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TABLE 3. Dimensions of the antenna structure (designed on a substrate

with relative permitivity of, r = 2.97 and height of, H = 1.55 mm).

FIGURE 9. Antenna parameters variation versus cube height in mode 2.

FIGURE 10. Fabricated reconfigurable antenna (a) design steps (b) testing FIGURE 11. Input reflection coefficient, (a) mode1, (b) mode 2.
with the biasing network.

in dielectric is around 0.024λr to 0.052λr , which does not

vary surface waves in the substrate a lot and as a result the By increasing the cube height, the amount of surface cur-
matching or radiation characteristics of the antenna remains rents flow on the conductive walls of the cube increases which
almost the same, as expected. will result in some spurious radiation at undesired angles.
Similarly, variations in cube height also does not affect the This widens the beam area and leads to lower values of
resonant frequency of the antenna as long as the feeding and directivity and co to cross ratio as shown in Fig. 9.
matching network are intact. However, the distance between We also notice that the front to back ratio is maximum for
active or excited patch on one face and the patch that is not our chosen cube height of 30 mm, and it drops as GWZ is
excited on the opposite face, together with the height of cube given a smaller or larger value. This is mainly because, there
walls can affect the radiation properties of the antenna. This is an optimal distance for which all radiators contributing in
is due to the change of distance between the active elements the far field, including both active and parasitic elements,
and the coupled parasitic element. have out of phase radiations in the back-lobe region, which

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S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

FIGURE 12. Radiation pattern measurement setup (a) XY plane

(b) XZ plane.
FIGURE 13. Realized gain from simulation vs measurement
(0◦ corresponds to top face), (a) mode 1 (b) mode 2.

will result in back lobe suppression and maximum front to

back ratio.
by cables and metallic parts of the mast), there is slight
III. RECONFIGURABLE ANTENNA PERFORMANCE
deviation between the measured antenna radiation pattern and
The dimensions of the final circuit are shown in Table 3.
the simulation results. Furthermore, maximum realized gain
Whereas, Fig. 10 shows the final reconfigurable antenna
was measured as 2.85 dBi and 4.2 dBi and efficiency of 84%
fabricated on an AD300 substrate.
and 80% for mode 1 and mode 2, respectively. These results
Measured and simulated input reflection coefficients of
satisfies our design goal of having a low gain omnidirectional
antenna in mode 1 and mode 2 are compared in Fig. 11.
pattern in the azimuth plane in mode 1, while a more directive
Results in both the cases meet the requirements and antenna
broadside beam with higher gain in mode 2.
offers satisfactory performance around 2.4 GHz band with
504 MHz and 65 MHz bandwidth in mode 1 and mode 2,
respectively. Slight discrepancy between simulation and mea- IV. CONCLUSION
surement can be attributed to the manual fabrication of the In this paper, a novel 3D antenna structure for WSN appli-
antenna and presence of a high profile SMA connector on cations has been presented. The antenna is reconfigurable
cube body. and capable of generating both omnidirectional (mode 1) and
In addition, antenna radiation pattern measurement setup patch-like (mode 2) radiation patterns. The former pattern
is show in Fig. 12. The corresponding results are shown was accomplished by using 3D folded slot array mapped on
in Fig. 13 (a) and (b) for mode 1 and 2, respectively, which the cube side walls, whereas the latter was achieved through
shows good agreement between simulated and measured the excitation of patch antennas embedded on the top and
results. The two modes were easily excited by simply using bottom faces of the cube. The results show good agreement
the switching network. Due to noticeable size of SMA con- between measured and simulated gain and reflection coef-
nector on the antenna body and some undesired interac- ficient. The antenna was matched at 2.44 GHz with maxi-
tion with measurement setup (e.g. blockage effect caused mum gain of 2.85 dBi and 4.2 dBi in mode 1 and mode 2,

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 S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

respectively. The proposed antenna is a robust design and M0 e−jkr

E = aφ j × EZ(θ)
proves to be an excellent candidate for WSN applications.  πrsinθ ◦

 EY(φ,θ ) · ejkasinθcos(φ−0 )
 ◦
APPENDIX

 +EY ◦ ·e
jkasinθcos(φ−90 ) ,
( φ −90 )


◦ ◦

N 0 ≤◦ φ ≤ 90

e−jk0 Rn
X 


E = an · EFn (ϕ) 

EY(φ −90◦ ,θ ) · ejkasinθcos(φ−90 )
Rn


n=1 ◦


+EY(φ −180◦ ) · ejkasinθcos(φ−180 ) ,


N 
e−jk0 r X

◦ ◦
90 ≤◦ φ ≤ 180

an e+jk0 asinθcos(ϕ−ϕn ) · EFn (ϕ),

= (1)
r · jkasinθcos(φ−180 )
(9)
n=1 
 EY ( φ −180
◦
,θ ) · e
 ◦
where, an = In eαn are the element excitation and the distance +EY(φ −270◦ ,θ ) · ejkasinθcos(φ−270 ) ,




 ◦ ◦
Rn is approximated by r for the amplitude terms and by factor 

 180 ≤ φ ≤ 270
◦

r −asinθcos(ϕ −ϕn ). Moreover, a is the distance between the 

EY ◦ · ejkasinθcos(φ−270 )
 (φ −270 ,θ )


two array elements. Thus the progressive phase shift is,  ◦
+EY(φ,θ ) · ejkasinθcos(φ−0 ) ,




αn = −l0 asinθ0 cos(φ0 − φn ). ◦
270 ≤ φ ≤ 360 .
◦

(2) 

Magnetic current on vertical faces of the cube is given by, M0 e−jkr

E = aφ j × EZ(θ)
 πrsinθ
  
SL 
SW

M(x 0 , y0 , z0 ) = az M0 sin k − |z0 | , (3)  sin k0 sinθsinφ
2 
 2
ejkasinθcos(φ)


√

GW 0 k sinθ sinφ
2 , |y | < 2 and x = 2 , where, k = k0 r

for |z0 | ≤ GWZ 0 SW 0 0


  
 SW
is the wavenumber in the substrate and az M0 = −2n × ay E0 .


 sin k0 sinθcosφ
2

ejkasinθsin(φ) ,

+

M0 e−jkr


EF = Eφ aφ = j × EY(φ,θ) × EZ(θ) aφ , (4)

 k 0 sinθcosφ ◦ ◦
0 ≤ φ ≤ 90

πrsinθ


  
SW


where,


 sin k0 sinθcosφ

 2
ejkasinθsin(φ)
 
SW


 sin ky 2


, −90 ≤ φ ≤ 90


 k
 0 sinθ cosφ 
EY(φ,θ) = Ky (5)

 SW

 sin k0 sinθsinφ
90 < φ < 270, 2

0, 

e−jkasinθcos(φ) ,


 +

GWZ
 
GWZ
 

 k 0 sinθsinφ ◦ ◦
EZ(θ) = cos kz sin k0 90 ≤ φ ≤ 180

2 2 · 
SW


GWZ
 
GWZ
 
 sin k0 sinθsinφ
2

− sin kz cos k0 cosθ (6)

ejkasinθcos(φ)


2 2 
 k sinθ sinφ

 0 
where, kx = k0 sinθcosφ, ky = k0 sinθsinφ and kz = k0 cosθ

 SW
sin k sinθcosφ

0


 2
ejkasinθsin(φ) ,

+
EFn (ϕ) = EF(|φ − (n − 1)90◦ |) (7) 

 k0 sinθcosφ ◦ ◦

180 ≤ φ ≤ 270

where (n − 2)90◦ ≤ φ ≤ n90◦ for φn = (n − 1)90◦


  

 SW
sin k0 sinθcosφ

◦
 
2

EF1 · ejkasinθcos(φ−0 )

ejkasinθsin(φ)

 

 ◦


 +EF · ejkasinθcos(φ−90 ) ,

 k 0 sinθ cosφ
2
   
SW

 

◦ ◦
0 ≤ φ ≤ 90


 
 sin k0 sinθsinφ
2

 
ejkasinθcos(φ) ,
 ◦

+
EF2 · ejkasinθcos(φ−90 )

 
k0 sinθsinφ

 

◦
 ◦ ◦
270 ≤ φ ≤ 360 .
 
+EF3 · ejkasinθcos(φ−180 ) ,




 ◦ ◦ (10)
90 ≤ φ ≤ 180


E= ◦ (8)
EF3 · ejkasinθcos(φ−180 )
 V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
 ◦ The authors would like to thank Rogers corporation for
+EF4 · ejkasinθcos(φ−270 ) ,




 ◦ ◦
providing PCB materials samples and CMC for simulation
180 ≤ φ ≤ 270



 software. Authors thank Payson system as well.
◦


EF4 · ejkasinθcos(φ−270 )

REFERENCES


 ◦
+EF1 · ejkasinθcos(φ−0 ) ,

 [1] H. A. Damis, N. Khalid, R. Mirzavand, H.-J. Chung, and P. Mousavi,

◦ ◦ ‘‘Investigation of epidermal loop antennas for biotelemetry IoT applica-
270 ≤ φ ≤ 360 .


tions,’’ IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 15806–15815, 2018.

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S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

[2] C. Perera, C. H. Liu, S. Jayawardena, and M. Chen, ‘‘A survey on Inter- NABIL KHALID (S’15) received the bachelor’s
net of Things from industrial market perspective,’’ IEEE Access, vol. 2, degree in electrical engineering from Air Univer-
pp. 1660–1679, 2014. sity, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2013, with majors
[3] S. Shamsinejad, ‘‘3-D cubic slot antennas with application in wireless involved telecommunications, RF/Microwave, and
sensor networks,’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. Alberta, Edmonton, AB, RADARs, and the M.Sc. degree in electrical and
Canada, 2017. computer engineering from Koc University, Istan-
[4] Y. Yoshimura, ‘‘A microstripline slot antenna (Short Papers),’’ IEEE Trans.
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‘‘Reconfigurable gap-coupled back-to-back truncated rhombus-like slotted He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree under the
patch antenna with steerable beams,’’ in Proc. 21st Int. Conf. Telecommun. supervision of Prof. P. Mousavi with the Electrical
(ICT), May 2014, pp. 338–342. and Computer Engineering Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton,
[6] V.-A. Nguyen, M.-H. Jeong, M.-T. Dao, and S.-O. Park, ‘‘Four-port Canada, with the focus on designing efficient MIMO antennas. He was
beam reconfigurable antenna array for pattern diversity system,’’ IET with RWR Pvt. Ltd., Islamabad, Pakistan, from 2013 to 2014, as a Design
Microwaves, Antennas Propag., vol. 6, no. 10, pp. 1179–1186, Jul. 2012. Engineer with the RF/Microwave Department. His focus was on designing
[7] D. Patron, D. Piazza, and K. R. Dandekar, ‘‘Wideband planar antenna industrial grade power amplifiers. From 2015 to 2017, he was with the
with reconfigurable omnidirectional and directional radiation patterns,’’
Next-generation and Wireless Communications Laboratory (NWCL) as a
Electron. Lett., vol. 49, no. 8, pp. 516–518, Apr. 2013.
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slot antenna on cubic structure,’’ IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., ratory (IWT) as a Research Assistant, in 2017.
vol. 15, pp. 1081–1084, 2016.
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ized origami antenna,’’ IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, cal engineering (bioelectric) from the Amirkabir University of Technology
pp. 2026–2029, 2017. (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran, in 2006, and the M.Sc. degree in electri-
[12] J. Sarrazin, Y. Mahe, S. Avrillon, and S. Toutain, ‘‘Pattern reconfig- cal engineering (communications-fields and waves) from the Iran University
urable cubic antenna,’’ IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 2, of Science and Technology, Tehran, in 2010. She is currently pursuing the
pp. 310–317, Feb. 2009. Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering (electromagnetics and microwave)
[13] S. Shamsinejad and P. Mousavi, ‘‘Pattern reconfigurable multimode square with the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
waveguide slot antenna,’’ in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas Propag. Her current research interest includes antenna analysis and design.
(APSURSI), Jun./Jul. 2016, pp. 1315–1316. Ms. Monavar was a recipient of the NSERC Industrial Postgraduate
[14] T. M. Weller, L. P. B. Katehi, and G. M. Rebeiz, ‘‘Single and double folded-
Scholarship and the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship-Doctoral level.
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communication systems,’’ in Proc. IEEE Antennas Propag. Soc. Int. Symp., Assistant with the Integrated Circuits and Systems (iCAS) Laboratory, ECE
vol. 2, Jun. 1994, pp. 810–813. Department, University of Alberta, Canada.
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[21] M. Jusoh, T. Sabapathy, M. F. Jamlos, and M. R. Kamarudin, ‘‘Recon-
figurable four-parasitic-elements patch antenna for high-gain beam RASHID MIRZAVAND (M’12–SM’16) received
switching application,’’ IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 13, the B.Sc. degree from the Isfahan University of
pp. 79–82, 2014. Technology, Isfahan, Iran, in 2004, and the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees from the Amirkabir University
SOUREN SHAMSINEJAD (S’12) received the of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran,
B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the in 2007 and 2011, respectively, all in electrical
Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran engineering.
Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran, in 2004, and the M.Sc. Since 2011, he has been a Research Profes-
degree in electrical engineering (communications- sor with the Amirkabir University of Technology.
fields and waves) from the Iran University of He is currently a Research Associate with the Intel-
Science and Technology, Tehran, in 2007. He is ligent Wireless Technology Laboratory, University of Alberta, Edmonton,
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical AB, Canada. He has authored more than 85 papers published in refereed jour-
engineering (electromagnetics and microwave) nals and conferences proceedings. His research interests include integrated
with the University of Alberta, Edmonton, sensors and microwave/millimeter-wave circuits.
AB, Canada. Dr. Mirzavand received the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from the Amirkabir
His current research interests include active integrated antennas, University of Technology, in 2012, the Best National ICT Researcher Award
intelligent small antennas, RF, and optical MEMS. from the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of Iran,
Mr. Shamsinejad was a recipient of the NSERC Industrial Postgraduate in 2013, the Elite Young Researcher Grant Award from Iran’s NEF, in 2014,
Scholarship and the Alberta Innovates-Technology Future Graduate Student and the Alberta Innovates Technology Futures Elite Postdoctoral Fellowship
Scholarship. Award, in 2015.

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 S. Shamsinejad et al.: Pattern Reconfigurable Cubic Slot Antenna

GHOLAMREZA MORADI (M’09–SM’16) was PEDRAM MOUSAVI (M’00–SM’14) received

born in Shahriar, Iran, in 1966. He received the the B.Sc. degree (Hons.) in telecommunication
B.Sc. degree in electrical communication engi- engineering from the Iran University of Science
neering from Tehran University, Tehran, Iran, and Technology, Tehran, in 1995, and the M.Sc.
in 1989, the M.Sc. degree in electrical commu- and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Mani-
nication engineering from the Iran University of toba, Winnipeg, Canada, in 1997 and 2001, respec-
Science and Technology, Tehran, in 1993, and tively, all in electrical engineering.
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from He is currently a Professor with the Depart-
Tehran Polytechnic University, Tehran, in 2002. ment of Mechanical Engineering and a NSERC-AI
From 1997 to 2006, he was a Faculty Member with Industrial Research Chair in intelligent integrated
the Civil Aviation Technology College, Tehran. In 2003, he was selected as sensors and antennas with the University of Alberta. His current mission is
an Exemplary Researcher of the Iranian Ministry of Road and Transportation. to foster a strong collaboration between industry and academia and stimu-
He is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical late more industry relevant research in wireless technologies. The research
Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), conducted through this industrial chair program will allow information and
Tehran. He has authored or coauthored several papers in refereed journals communications technology (ICT) innovations to be applied to the areas
and local and international conferences. He has coauthored Communica- of intelligent integrated sensors and antennas to improve the productiv-
tion Transmission Lines [Nahr-e-Danesh Press, 2007 (in Persian)], Active ity of the oil-energy sector and to sustain its growth. He has more than
Transmission Lines [Amirkabir University Press, 2008 (in Persian)], and 180 refereed journal and conference articles and several patents in this field.
Microwave Engineering [Nahr-e-Danesh Press, 2008 (in Persian)]. His main His research interests include advanced intelligent antenna, microwave and
research interests include numerical electromagnetics, antennas, and active millimeter-waves circuits and systems, 5G phased array antennas, UWB
microwave, and millimeter-wave circuits and systems. radar systems, 3-D printing electronics, and the Zero-power IoT.
Dr. Mousavi has over fifteen years of entrepreneurial academic experience
with start-up companies from the University of Waterloo and the University
of Alberta. He founded Intelwaves Technologies as a spin-off from the
University of Waterloo. He is a Co-Founder of WiDyne Technologies and
SenZioT Technologies from the University of Alberta.

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