Environmentally adaptable antenna
View Patent ↗A thermally adaptive antenna system having an antenna structure, an EM) power signal, a DC power signal, an impedance tuner, a temperature sensor in the antenna, a DC-DC conversion component, and a microcontroller. The microcontroller provides a tuning command to the impedance tuner, causing the impedance tuner to compensate for an impedance change in the antenna due to a temperature change in the antenna. An environmentally adaptive antenna system has an antenna structure, an EM power signal, a DC power signal, an EM power splitter, a directional coupler, a reference receiver, a measurement receiver, an impedance tuner, and a controller. The controller calculates antenna impedance change based on observed changes in return loss, calculates a corresponding correction to the antenna impedance, and sends a command to the impedance tuner to implement the correction to the antenna impedance.
1 . A thermally adaptive antenna system, comprising:
an antenna structure, an electromagnetic (EM) power signal, a DC power signal, a Bias-T, an impedance tuner, a temperature sensor in the antenna structure, a DC-DC conversion component, and a microcontroller,
wherein the EM power signal goes to the antenna structure via the Bias-T and the DC power signal goes to the microcontroller via the Bias-T, wherein the temperature sensor collects and sends temperature data to the microcontroller, and wherein the microcontroller provides a tuning command to the impedance tuner, causing the impedance tuner to compensate for an impedance change in the antenna structure due to a temperature change in the antenna structure.
2 . The thermally adaptive antenna system of claim 1 wherein the microcontroller is programmed with a look-up table that converts observed temperature to an impedance tuner setting which corresponds to a desired impedance compensation term.
3 . The thermally adaptive antenna system of claim 1 wherein a bias-T receives the EM power signal and the DC power signal and wherein the bias T directs the EM signal to an antenna structure and the DC power signal to a DC-DC conversion component.
4 . The thermally adaptive antenna system of claim 1 wherein the impedance tuner is in line with the signal propagation path and the antenna structure.
5 . The thermally adaptive antenna system of claim 1 wherein the DC-DC conversion component provides DC voltage and power to the microcontroller, the impedance tuner, and the temperature sensor in the antenna structure.