An Origami Inspired Reconfigurable Spiral Antenna

Modern day systems often require reconfigurability in the operating parameters of the transmit and receive antennas, such as the resonant frequency, radiation pattern, impedance, or polarization. In this work a novel approach to antenna reconfigurability is presented by integrating antennas with the ancient art of origami. The proposed antenna consists of an inkjet printed center-fed spiral antenna, which is designed to resonate at 1.0GHz and have a reconfigurable radiation pattern while maintaining the 1.0GHz resonance with little variation in input impedance. When flat, the antenna is a planar spiral exhibiting a bidirectional radiation pattern. By a telescoping action, the antenna can be reconfigured into a conical spiral with a directional pattern and higher gain, which gives the antenna a large front-to-back ratio. Construction of the antenna in this manner allows for a simple, lightweight, transportable antenna that can expand to specifications in the field.