Improvements in and Relating to Reconfigurable Antenna and Switching

摘要

An apparatus for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic waves has: an antenna array 100 comprising a plurality of first antenna elements each having a first antenna configuration 101 and a plurality of second antenna elements each having a second antenna configuration (102, 103, 104) wherein the first antenna configuration and second antenna configuration are different; and one or more switches operable to switch on or off one or more of the antenna elements so as to configure the antenna array. The reconfigurable antenna array 100 may have an element group 101 to 104 repeated across the array 100. Also, an array of the elements 101 is interleaved with an array of the elements 102 across the larger array 100. Homogeneous or heterogeneous antenna array structures may be implemented. The antenna arrays may include one or more different type of antennas with for example different shapes, rotations and reflections.