Reconfigurable Antenna based System for Spectrum Monitoring and Radio Direction Finding

A reconfigurable antenna based system for spectrum monitoring and radio direction finding is proposed. The proposed system provides lower complexity and smaller physical size compared to existing direction finding systems based on phase difference of multiple antenna elements or systems based on mechanically rotating antenna. Instead of using multi-element antenna arrays or rotatable directional antenna, we use reconfigurable antenna that has the capability to reconfigure its characteristics to match frequency and minimize polarization loss of incoming signals. The other main feature of the reconfigurable radio direction finder is the use of multiple directional antenna pattern states with multiple pointing directions that cover the azimuthal 360 degrees.