Theoretical and experimental investigation of the modulated scattering antenna array for mobile terminal applications

The performance of the modulated scattering antenna array (MSAA) for mobile terminals is investigated in this paper. The electromagnetic scattering of the modulated scattering elements (MSEs) loaded with Schottky diode is analyzed by using the Volterra series method in conjunction with the method of moments, which rigorously includes the mutual couplings among the MSAA elements. By virtue of closed-form analytical expression of Volterra analysis, useful physical insights and guidelines are provided to find optimum parameters of the MSEs in order to improve the performance of the MSAA for wireless communications. Parametrical studies are carried out for the purpose of enhancing the scattered power level of the second-order intermodulation caused by the nonlinear load in the MSEs. Both numerical simulations and experiments validate the proposed theoretical analysis.