Sci-fi inspired antenna adjusts to signal needs

https://spectrum.ieee.org/smart-materials-morphing-antenna

by rbanffy • 2 years ago

54 8 2 years ago

spectrum.ieee.org

xhkkffbf• 2 years ago

Very clever. I hope there aren't too many engineering issues.

ethanwillis• 2 years ago

Would be interesting to use in electronic warfare scenarios.

Scene_Cast22• 2 years ago

A different idea based on time-varying antennas, but I've always wondered about the interesting technical challenges behind building a phased array antenna from a bunch of flying drones.

evoke4908• 2 years ago

Your main challenge will probably be measuring the distance between neighboring drones as accurately as possible. AIUI you could recover signal from unevenly spaced receptors IFF you know precisely where each receptor is.

After that it's just a standard computational problem which is (IMO) far less interesting.

wkat4242• 2 years ago

You also have to synchronise to a fraction of the wavelength so that's going to be very difficult too with everything moving around.

Ps maybe that's what you meant too

Scene_Cast22• 2 years ago

Well, I was thinking that for GHz level signals, you can't just beam your stuff down to a ground station due to bandwidth limitations, so your drones can't be just dumb ADCs, and there would need to be some compute on board. Time synchronization also becomes interesting.

IYasha• 2 years ago

Not very practical, imo:

1. antennas must withstand major changes of ambient temperatures, direct sunlight, humidity and many other factors. How would one maintain nitinol in desired shape? Which prompts the next question:

2. how does it maintain efficiency? the heating needs energy, so antenna won't be passive - okay. But motorized lifting mechanism that only draws power when change of shape is happening might be a better idea.

neuthral• 2 years ago

Dynamic antennas? maybe grow antennas for specific wavelengths? also is it possible to have a live two-way interference correction,

Sci-fi inspired antenna adjusts to signal needs

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