Anisotropic carbon fiber nanocomposites for mechanically reconfigurable antenna applications

We demonstrate the potential use of reinforced continuous carbon fiber composite (RCCFC) material for building reconfigurable antennas. The frequency and polarization agility characteristics of the proposed antennas are obtained by the rotation of the antenna ground plane which is made of anisotropic conductive RCCFC material. The anisotropic RCCFC ground plane provides a mode filter mechanism in the proposed antennas. The mechanical and chemical strength of RCCFC materials along with the promising radiation characteristics of the RCCFC antennas make the proposed composite antenna very suitable for radio cognitive and military applications.