Your next antenna might be made of liquid

University of Liverpool researchers have been awarded £578,000 in funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to develop liquid antennas, which have the potential to transform radiocommunications and radar.

With the advent of the IoT and 5G, there’s a need to devise new types of antennas that are small, transparent and have better reconfigurability than metal antennas.

Water can be used as an antenna; however, it has the obvious problem of becoming solid once the temperature falls below zero.

The research will bring together radio experts from the university’s Department of Electrical Engineering & Electronics and material scientists from the Department of Chemistry to identify the most suitable liquid materials.

Those liquids will be tested for loss, thermal and mechanical stability, ability to work in temperatures ranging from –30 to +60°C, ability to transmit in the right frequency ranges (from kHz to GHz) and with RF and microwave power ranges up to 100 kW.

The project will also explore how to design compact and efficient liquid antennas that are flexible or reconfigurable in terms of the main antenna parameters (such as operational frequency and radiation pattern) and suitable for a wide range of real-world applications.

Image courtesy University of Liverpool.

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