Conformal Phased Array for a Miniature Wireless Sensor Node

This paper reports on the design and fabrication of a fully integrated antenna beam steering concept for wireless sensor nodes. The conformal array circumcises four cube faces with a silicon core mounted on each face. Every silicon core represents a 2 by 1 antenna array with an antenna element consisting of a dipole antenna, a balun, and a distributed MEMS phase shifter. All these components are based on a single wafer process and designed to work at 17.2 GHz. First results of individual devices are reported and simulations of the whole concept are originally presented.