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Abstract— In this modern era of wireless communication, the broad application of engineered materials attracted scientists around the globe. This new paradigm of metamaterials can be creatively utilized to resolve various challenges faced by the conventional design techniques. Being one of the most sensitive components of a wireless communication system, the interest in metamaterial based antenna designs are growing very rapidly. The objective of this work is to review state of the art techniques in this magnificent area of research. The chronological discussion on various metamaterial based radiation pattern synthesis are outlined in this paper.

Index Terms— Metamaterial, Beam forming, Gain enhancement, radiation pattern synthesis.

I. INTRODUCTIONThe dramatic developments in wireless communication

technology demand highly efficient system components that operate with high level of synergy. The extreme importance of highly effective design of antennas in these systems is more evident in the current era. The vast increase in the research publications, patents and books in antenna engineering clearly indicate the worldwide research focus in this field of engineering. The pattern synthesis is one of the key research stream that focus on various techniques to control / modify the radiation characteristics of antennas. Traditional examples include mechanical rotation of antennas and phased arrays. The technological advancements in interdisciplinary areas enable researchers to find emerging solutions that are more efficient than conventional techniques. The metamaterials are artificial structures, whose electromagnetic properties can be engineered to achieve extraordinary phenomena not observed in natural materials. The recent article on new scientist magazine “Metamaterial: going beyond nature” observes that “the possibilities of metamaterials are limited only by our imagination and not by the number of elements in the periodic table”. The science magazine also suggests that, this new paradigm may lead to a revolution in the area of advanced communications and management of information. Therefore, the field of engineered metamaterials provides a multidisciplinary platform which is very fascinating and can lead to many scientific breakthroughs in the coming years. This new paradigm of metamaterials attracts researchers in industry and academia to develop innovative concepts in the radiation

pattern synthesis of antennas. Through this paper we conducted a systematic review on metamaterial based radiation pattern synthesis. It is found that this research stream is growing rapidly with rich contributions from industry and academia. The technical contents of this study are classified broadly as (i) Metamaterial based beam forming techniques and (ii) Directivity enhancement techniques based on metamaterials.

II. METAMATERIAL BASED BEAM FORMING TECHNIQUES

In this section we explore various beam formingtechniques based on engineered materials. Majority of the works found in this direction can be classified as the following groups. (i) Various concepts based on frequency selective surfaces (ii) Electromagnetic band gap based beam forming techniques.

A. Frequency Selective Surface based TechniquesThe frequency selective surface (FSS) can be defined as a

surface which act as a filter for plane waves irrespective of the angle of incidence. The researchers around the world explored this unique nature of FSS to build antenna systems that can replace conventional techniques. There are infinite numbers of geometrical shapes that are employed as an FSS unit-cell. In [1], Prof. Munk classified FSS elements in to four groups namely Group 1 to Group 4. This include center connected elements ( Group 1), Loop type components (Group 2), Solid shapes (group 3) and a combination of group 1 to group 3 (Group 4) which is depicted in Fig. 1

Fig.1: Classification of FSS elements as proposed by [1] (a) Group 1:Center connected (b)Group 2: loop type (c) Group 3: Solid shapes (group 3) (d) Group 4 : Combinations of Group 1,2 and 3.

A Review of Metamaterial based Radiation Pattern Synthesis in Antenna Engineering

Gijo Augustin(1), Bybi P Chacko(2) and Tayeb A Denidni(3) National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS), Montreal (Quebec), Canada

Email:[email protected] (1), [email protected] (2), [email protected] (3)

*This use of this work is restricted solely for academic purposes. The author of this work owns the copyright and no reproduction in any form is permitted without written permission by the author.*

mailto:[email protected]




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Fig. 2: Tunable impedance surface for beam steering applications [2]

Fig. 3: An electronically tunable AMC surface [7]

The history of FSS dates back to early 1960s when there were significant military needs to develop periodic structures for various applications. In this early stage most of the efforts were focused on the development of new materials with unique electromagnetic properties that can be utilized to process wave propagation. Even though the basic concepts of these engineered structures were known, the research interest for beam steering applications raised relatively later. In 2002 Sievenpiper et al. proposed a tunable surface (Fig. 2) that can be employed as a beam steering reflector [2]. This design incorporates an array of tunable resonators that provide frequency dependent surface impedance. In essence they demonstrated the concept of employing multi-dimensional array of tunable resonant cavities to steer the antenna beam.

In general, the high impedance surface possesses many advantages compared to a conventional ground plane, which includes suppression of propagating surface currents. This is a highly attractive feature for antennas with finite ground plane. In addition, the high impedance boundaries will act as an artificial magnetic conductor. This facilitate implementation of radiating structures close to the ground plane without being short circuited [3, 4]. A metamaterial based partially reflecting surface (PRS) is a good candidate for the design of a highly directive beam

steering antenna. One of the interesting design is by Ourir et al. [5], in which a metamaterial screen with the capability to electronically control the beam direction was proposed. This prototype demonstrate a compact antenna at 10GHz with a cross section of approximately λ/30 that produce a beam deflection up to 20º. The concept of employing frequency dependent, electronically tunable high impedance surface is also demonstrated in broad range of low profile antennas [6, 7]. An interesting example is the work by Costa et al. [7] which describes the design of an active artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) based reconfigurable antenna (Fig. 3). The S-band antenna consists of bow-tie radiating element and varactor diode loaded FSS on a thin FR4 substrate. This design facilitates tuning of 2:1 VSWR band along with the beam direction by properly tuning the varactor diodes. The work experimentally demonstrates that the return loss of the antenna can be controlled by tuning the operating frequency of the AMC.

The major challenges in the development of beam scanning antennas are (i) obtaining a near 360º beam steering and (ii) maintaining the same polarization in different angles of beam tilt. This challenge is addressed by Deo et al. [6] using a high impedance surface demonstrated in Fig. 4. One of the attractive feature of this design is that they obtained the above two goals in a low profile antenna with a cross section of ~ λ/17 at 3.3 GHz. The design employs a spiral antenna as source with an array of 8 x 8 High Impedance Surface (HIS) structures whose properties are controlled through sixteen switches on a square ground plane of ~ 1.1λ.

An Active Frequency Selective Surface (AFSS), is a potential candidate for broad range of applications where the propagation of electromagnetic waves need to be electronically controlled. One of the simplest technique to implement AFSS is to introduce active elements such as pin diodes , varactor diodes[8-10], microelectromechanical switches[11, 12] and liquid crystals[13, 14].

Fig.4 A low profile spiral antenna with HIS for near 360º beam steering [6]


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Fig.5. The AFSS unit-cells employed for beam steering in [15]

The research group at National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS), Canada has proposed a broad range of conformal antennas that effectively utilize AFSS for beam steering applications [15-18]. The work by Niroo-Jazi et al. [15, 18] focuses on the development of an electronically tunable transparent / opaque screen that can be employed to sweep the radiation pattern in azimuth angles. One of his design [18] at 2.45GHz experimentally demonstrate that by electronically activating various PIN diodes, the radiation pattern can be swept through the entire azimuth plane. Meanwhile another design [15], introduces a new hybrid AFSS unit-cell (Fig.5) that provides more design flexibility in controlling the radiation characteristics. The design guidelines based on reflector antenna concepts are introduced in this work which is a good tool to estimate the required number of AFSS unit-cells.

The major design challenges in the design of conformal beam steering antennas using AFSS structures are (i) to minimize the unwanted effects of diodes such as increased side-lobe levels and (ii) to optimize the diameter of the cylindrical AFSS structure. These challenges are addressed by Edalati et al. [16, 17] in which the radiation pattern of an electromagnetically coupled coaxial dipole (ECCD) array is steered using AFSS structures. The antenna prototype displayed in this work possess a cylindrical structure of radius ~ λ/4 embedded with 12 columns of AFSS with angular periodicity of 30º. An improved design of the beam steering antenna by the same group is demonstrated in [16] in which the number of AFSS unit-cells are much lower, without sacrificing the beam steering properties of the antenna.

Barium-Strontium-Titanate (BST) is an efficient alternative to PIN diodes and varactor diodes in the design of high frequency, reconfigurable systems. The work by Sazegar et al. [19] is an excellent effort in this direction. The research group presents an electronically tunable transmit array based on BST for beam steering applications in the Ku band which provides a cost effective design of AFSS. The BST coated capacitive elements cause a phase shift for the waves passing through the engineered surface. One challenge in this design is to minimize the loss introduced

Fig.6. Beams steering of a horn antenna using AFSS structure [20]. (a) AFSS mounted in front of a horn antenna (b) AFSS unit-cell with biasing details.

by the FSS screen. The measurement results indicate that a 40 x 40 array of AFSS unit-cells can integrate 1600 BST based varactor diodes which in turn provide a phase shift of up to 121º resulting in a beam steering of ±10º at 12GHz. Another attractive feature of this design is that the maximum loss introduced is less than 3dB.

Horn antennas are one of classical antennas that are employed for highly directional wireless communication systems. The AFSS structures can be employed as a pattern reconfigurable screen (Fig.6) as presented in the work by Pan et al. [20]. The design utilizes varactor diodes to modify the transmission phase of the emitted wave by properly tuning the diodes. This will also serve as an active RADOME for the horn antennas that can facilitate a beam steering of ±30º in both the principle planes at 5.3 GHz.

Among various designs based on AFSS techniques that focus on electronic beam steering, the use of varactor diodes in tuning the unit-cell does have many advantages. One of the key benefits compared to PIN diode is that the leakage current of varactor diodes are very low. This facilitates the operation of the entire beam steering antenna system with large number of active unit-cells operate in a low wattage battery. The work by Zhang et al. [21] presents a varactor diode based, beam steering antenna with the scanning capability in the whole azimuth plane, In which the antenna is controlled using a multi-channel programmable voltage controller.

It is interesting to note that, there are emerging antenna designs based on engineered materials which enable additional flexibility for the designer to control the beam electronically. The interest shown by the antenna research communities in this direction indicate that these design topologies are powerful enough to address many fundamental challenges in this magnificent field of engineering.

B. Electromagnetic band gap (EBG) based concepts: One of the simple definition of EBG is outlined [22] as

“artificial periodic ( or sometimes non-periodic) objects that prevent / assist the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a specified band of frequency for all incident angles and all polarizations states”. These engineered geometries are generally classified into three groups (i) volumetric 3-D


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Fig.7. Cylindrical EBG based beam steering antenna geometrical configuration [29]

structures, (ii) Planar 2-D surfaces and (iii) 1-D transmission lines. The classical examples include 3D dielectric structures [23], mushroom EBGs [24] and planar EBG based transmission lines [25]. The propagation of electromagnetic waves through an EBG surface undergoes unique changes. These changes can be classified as (i) the EBG surface will not allow, in a specific band, the surface waves to propagate for any angle of incidence and for any polarization and (ii) the reflection phase of the incident plane wave on an EBG material become 0º for certain frequency which means the material behave as a perfect magnetic conductor which do not exist in nature. Due to the above key reasons EBGs are an important category of Engineered Materials or Metamaterials [22]. The recent research on EBG and its applications on beam steering antennas are reviewed in this session.

The ability of EBG materials to change the electromagnetic properties of waves attracts many research groups around the world. One of the key research focus based on these materials were on the beam steering applications of these materials on existing phased arrays. The work by Bozzetti et al. [26] employs the EBG materials in ground plane of the microstrip feed network that excites a phased array. This concept facilitates an improvement of almost twice in beam scanning angle by amplifying the dielectric perturbation using EBG structure. The development of beam steering antenna system without employing any beam forming network is an attractive cost effective alternative for phased array based beam forming antennas. This challenge is addressed by Boutayeb et al. [27-30], in which a cylindrical EBG structure shown in Fig.7 is developed and implemented around an omnidirectional source antenna to control the beam direction [29]. The characterization of a cylindrical FSS is first introduced by this research group [27, 28], which address detailed discussions about the multiple reflections of waves between the cylindrical FSS walls. A solid analysis of these 3D EBG structures with rich theoretical study of directivity optimization is also presented by the same group [27].

The 3D woodpile EBG structures are attractive candidates for the design of linear array antennas. The work of Weily et al. [31] address this challenge by creating a linear array antenna that employs stacked woodpile EBG material to

form a sectoral horn antenna. The technology outlined in this work demonstrates that the woodpile EBG displays reduction of mutual coupling between the elements in an array configuration.

In addition to beam steering, the EBG materials can be employed to produce multiple beams from an omnidirectional antenna. This feature motivated various researchers around the world [32-34]. The contribution from Chreim et al. [32] utilizes EBG as a Partially Reflecting Surface around the source antenna and in turn produces nine simultaneous beams (Fig.8). Another attractive EBG based dual band antenna design, shown in Fig.9, which produces multiple beams is introduced by Kanso et al. [35]. In this work, the challenges to obtain same phase center for two frequency bands which is highly desirable to feed a reflector antenna with focal length to diameter ratio of 1.2 is resolved. This original concept helps to reduce the phase aberrations and thereby maximizes the reflector efficiency.

An excellent hybrid design of multi-beam antenna is developed and experimentally validated by Youn in [34]. This design employs an EBG/ferrite hybrid ground plane in a slot antenna array operating at dual frequency bands. The hybrid design helps to generate reflection by inward radiation component in phase with the outward component. This forms omnidirectional radiation pattern in one mode of operation. In addition the design facilitates beam steering capability while operating in another mode.

Fig.8. The multiple beam antenna based on cylindrical EBG [32]

Fig.9: Concept of a waveguide excited EBG based dual band antenna [35]


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The equiangular spiral antennas are attractive candidates for broad range of applications such as satellite communication that require circularly polarized wave propagation. There are various obstacles faced by researchers to efficiently use EBG materials for circular polarized wave processing. The beam forming of a spiral antenna source using EBG is demonstrated by Nakano et al. [36]. The researchers analyzed various issues faced during the implementation to maintain wideband axial ratio of the source antenna. The exhaustive theoretical analysis of less than one wavelength thick spiral antenna reveals that by using a properly designed EBG based reflector plate we can maintain the broad axial ratio bandwidth. The researchers found that it is highly essential to maintain the constructive behavior for both the amplitude and phase of two radiating field components (one component from the spiral and other from the EBG reflector) that constitutes total radiation.

A Fabry-Perot antenna comprises of a radiation source and a Partially Reflecting Surface (PRS) located approximately half wavelength above the ground plane. The use of EBG material as a PRS produces beam steering capability for Fabry-Perot Cavity antennas. This opportunity attracted Guzman-Quiros et al. [37] to develop a novel antenna that can provide electronic scanning in three modes namely, backward, forward and broadside.

Through this review it has become more clear that the EBG structures holds a high potential and can be creatively implemented to develop beam steering / beam forming antennas. The recent updates [38, 39] indicate that the fundamental concepts can be extended to develop excellent antenna designs in millimeter wave and beyond.

III. DIRECTIVITY ENHANCEMENT CONCEPTS BASED ON METAMATERIALS

In this section we conduct a detailed review on various directivity enhancement techniques based on metamaterials. Compared to the conventional horn antenna and antenna arrays, metamaterial based antennas such as Fabry-Perot designs have got much attention due to its high gain, simple feed network and high efficiency. A typical Fabry-Perot antenna consists of a primary source antenna inside a cavity formed by a partially reflective surface and a fully reflective ground plane. The Fabry-Perot Cavity (FPC) antennas have raised enormous attention as an attractive high directivity/gain antenna for wireless communication systems. Ray tracing method based on multiple reflections and leaky wave radiation phenomenon are the two main approaches used to describe the working principle of these kinds of antennas. To achieve maximum directivity the cavity height is normally set as half wavelength. However the use of planar artificial magnetic conductor ground plane helped to reduce the cavity height from half wavelength to sub wavelengths. Different high gain superstrate antenna configurations have been explored since 1984 and they are classified as (i) EBG/FSS superstrate designs (ii) ZIM/LIM superstrate designs

A. EBG/FSS superstrate antenna A cover layer over an antenna will change its basic

performance characteristics. Using this idea, in 1984 Alexopoulos and Jackson proposed that a superstrate cover with high permittivity or permeability can be used to increase the gain, radiation resistance and efficiency [40]. This method is known as resonance gain method [41]. A modified approach of gain enhancement through multiple superstrate layers was presented by the same group in [42]. Furthermore, by using the defect mode produced by cylindrical rods, in 2002 Thevenot et al. [43], proposed an EBG resonator antenna with improved directivity. However their idea was limited to a single frequency application.

Lee, in 2004, proposed the design techniques to enhance the directivity of a patch antenna at two frequency bands using cylindrical dielectric rod based EGB superstrate layers [44]. In this design a patch antenna with a 12 x 3 EBG superstrate as depicted in Fig.10 (a), provides about 8dB gain enhancement in both bands. The radiation pattern of the EBG superstrate antenna and the patch antenna are shown in Fig. 10(b). The same group extended their design approach by using an FSS superstrate composed of freestanding metallic dipole strips as shown in the inset of Fig. 10(c) [45] and a superstrate for dual band dual polarization applications using cylindrical roads [46]. During the same time Weily proposed a high gain EBG antenna composed of 1D EBG material superstrate [47]. In this design a low dielectric constant substrate was used to create the superstrate layer. The authors also described a method to predict the antenna’s operating frequency using the multilayer superstrate theory.

Fig.10: High gain superstrate antenna [44] (a) Geometry (b) radiation pattern (c) directivity variation with frequency.

Fig.11: Antenna Geometry in [51] (a) Conventional superstrate based design (b) EBG ground plane based concept.


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Two different methods associated with metamaterials were combined in [48] to design a novel high directive dual frequency dual polarized antenna with enhanced port isolation. A strip mesh type FSS unit-cell based superstrate was employed for the dual frequency dual polarized antenna directivity enhancement. Using this superstrate, at two frequency bands, about 13dB and 12dB directivity enhancement is obtained. To overcome the narrow bandwidth of the superstrate antennas, in [49] Gardelli demonstrated the design of a highly directive antenna systems designs using sparse arrays and a partially reflective superstrate of high permittivity. A bandwidth of about 5.7 % and significant gain are the main features of the design.

The same narrow bandwidth problem of the EBG superstrate antenna was further studied by Pirhadi in [50]. The authors proposed the utilization of EBG superstrate to improve both impedance bandwidth and directivity. Simple square loop EBG structures were used for this purpose. In 2007 the same group proposed the concept of artificial ground planes in high gain superstrate antennas [51]. In this design the artificial ground plane helps to design a compact antenna with a reduced cavity height as shown in Fig.11. Further they extended their work by using two-sided square loop FSS superstrate layer [52].

In 2008, a modified method of low-profile EBG resonator antenna with an FSS superstrate of thickness 0.06 λg is presented in [53]. They deployed a thin dielectric superstrate of low-permittivity with metallic pattern printed on its two surfaces. A different approach to overcome the narrow bandwidth of the superstrate antenna was proposed by Liu in [54]. The authors demonstrated the use of a single layer FSS superstrate with dissimilar size square patches as illustrated in Fig.12. Such a superstrate with dissimilar size unit-cell improved the overlap bandwidth and the side-lobe level of the antenna.

Fig.12. FSS based gain enhancement concept [54] (a) Uniform FSS geometry (b)Tapered FSS (c-d) Antenna Characteristics.

Fig.13. Wideband EBG based concept as in [55] (a) Antenna Structure (b)Directivity (c)-(d) unit-cell characteristics

Fig.14: (a) Geometry of high directive antenna in [56] (b) radiation characteristics.

A better idea of wide band EBG superstrate for broadband antenna applications is presented by Moustafa in [55]. The antenna geometry with double FSS superstrate layers, directivity of the antenna in the wide operating band and the unit-cell characteristics are shown in Fig.13. The reflection coefficient phase of this novel unit-cell shows a positive phase variation with a slope inversion in the band 4.7-5.5 GHz.

An improved aspect to further enhance the gain of the superstrate antenna using metamaterial superstrate and EBG substrate was proposed by Xu in [56] (Fig.14). About 12.4 dB gain enhancement is achieved in this configuration. The combination of metamaterial cover and tapered artificial ground plane help to keep the phase difference inside the cavity within 1800. This idea was explored in [57] for simultaneous gain and bandwidth improvement.

In 2009, a new approach to design dual band sectoral antenna was proposed by Hajji et al. [58]. In this approach to avoid the narrow bandwidth problem of the superstrate antenna, a combination of metallic EBG superstrate layer and an FSS substrate is used. A high gain cavity resonance antenna with a highly reflective patch type superstrate was


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proposed by Foroozesh [59]. Compared to the superstrate cavity resonance antenna with a high permittivity superstrate, the proposed design showed many advantages like higher peak gains, wide input impedance and improved gain bandwidth.

Further gain enhancement of superstrate antenna was proposed by Moustafa by using multisource feeding technique and multiple layer superstrate. In this work, the phase inversion principle was used to characterize the unit- cell geometry [60]. To design a low profile antenna of sub wavelength values and wide radiation bandwidth [61], the authors presented an EBG superstrate which exhibits negative reflection phase. It is observed that the negative reflection phase superstrate are very effective to reduce the cavity height up λ/16.

Recently a wideband high gain EBG superstrate antenna was proposed by Pirhadi [62]. In this work as shown in Fig.15 an aperture coupled antenna is used as the feeding source and a single layer FSS is used as the superstrate layer. Compared to the aperture coupled source antenna, the bandwidth and the directivity of the EBG antenna have increased about 5 % and 70% respectively.

Sun et al. [63] presented the design of low profile sub wavelength substrate–integrated Fabry-Perot cavity antennas with artificial magnetic conductor sheets. For this ultra-thin planar design, a partially reflective planar AMC sheet and a ground plane were utilized as the two reflectors. Moreover, the cavity was filled with a dielectric substrate for further reduction of the antenna height. A more simple method to obtain a high gain dual-band electromagnetic band gap resonator antenna was proposed by Zeb et.al [64]. In this design the EBG superstrate is designed to offer a positive reflection phase gradient with high reflectivity, in two frequency bands.

Fig.15: FSS superstrate based wideband – high gain antenna geometry as in [62].

Fig.16: Wideband high gain Partially Reflective Surface (PRS) based design [65] (a) geometry (b) unit- cell Characteristics.

More recently, Konstantinidis [65] proposed the concept of a broadband high gain cavity antenna using three-layer periodic partially reflective surfaces. The geometry of the unit-cell with dissimilar size patches and its characteristics are shown in Fig.16. It is noted that the three layer unit-cell yield a reflection phase that increases with frequency from 14.1GHz to 15.1GHz. The antenna operating at a central frequency of 14.5 GHz provides high gain of 20dBi and a 3dB bandwidth of about 15%. Using the same positive gradient principle of the EBG structure in [66], the authors made an attempt to design a resonator antenna with a wide gain bandwidth. A combination of two complementary frequency selective surfaces was used to design the EBG unit-cell. A relative 3dB gain bandwidth of 28 % and a peak gain of 13.8dBi have been achieved by this new unit-cell.

B. Low index/Zero index based In 2002, Enoch et al. [67] presented the first experimental

results on emission in metamaterial. They showed that the energy emitted by a source antenna enclosed in a slab of Zero Index Medium (ZIM) metamaterial will be concentrated in a narrow cone in the surrounding media, resulting high directivity. They validated the approach by exciting six metamaterial layers formed by metallic meshes of thin wires with a monopole source antenna as shown in Fig.17.

In [68] Burokur et. al. demonstrated that the performance of a patch antenna can be considerably increased by an LHM superstrate. A combination of SRRs and copper wires as shown in Fig.18 were used to design the unit-cell geometry. A more directional antenna with 2.8dB gain enhancement was achieved when the superstrate was loaded above the patch antenna at an optimum position, which is half of the thickness of the LHM from the interface.

Fig.17: Gain enhancement of a monopole source using EBG layers [67]

Fig.18: Patch antenna gain enhancement using left handed metamaterial (LHM) [68]


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A study of different metamaterials as dipole antenna substrate to improve the directivity is presented in [69], with the same zero refraction property principle. Wu et al. [70] presented a flat lens horn antenna with three layers of metamaterial structure as depicted in Fig.19. In 2009 Hang et al. [71] presented a simple, compact and highly directive patch antenna with two layers zero index metamaterial superstrate. The unit-cell geometry with a periodicity of one fourth of the microwave wavelength is used in this design as depicted in Fig.20.

Around the same time Ju proposed [72] a single layer metamaterial superstrate with zero refractive index for the gain enhancement of patch antenna. About 5 dB gain enhancement and 1.5 dB gain flatness are the main features of the design. In [73]another attempt was made to design a highly directive antenna with an arbitrary shaped anisotropic metamaterial superstrate. The authors in [74] presented how much a superstrate with low refractive index affects the characteristics of a patch and a horn antenna. A new thin planar metamaterial superstrate structure that produces negative, zero and positive index values were used for this study.

An analytical technique to calculate the radiation field of high directivity superstrate antennas was proposed in 2011 [75]. In this paper, a high permittivity unit-cell based superstrate layers were designed to realize the high directive antenna. Recently a metamaterial unit-cell with low refractive index over a wide range of frequency from 9.45 GHz to 10.7 GHz was proposed in [76]. The low index superstrate based metamaterial antennas with three layers of superstrate [76, 77] provide more than 5dB gain enhancement. In [78] the authors present a 3D low index metamaterial based collimating lens. In this design both magnetic and electric low-index properties are used to collimate the radiation from a circularly polarized cross dipole above a ground plane as shown in Fig.21

Fig.19: A metamaterial based flat lens loaded horn antenna structure [70]

Fig.20: A zero-index metamaterial based high gain antenna concept as in [71] (a) Unit- cell characteristics (b) Antenna geometry

Fig.21 : Geometry of a circularly polarized metamaterial superstrate loaded antenna [78] (a) Antenna geometry (b) 3D unit-cell.

IV. CONCLUSIONS In this paper, we have conducted a review of wide range

of metamaterial based radiation pattern synthesis techniques. We have discussed this theme of research in two broad categories; Metamaterial based (i) beam-forming techniques and (ii) directivity enhancement concepts. Through this study it has been found that the new paradigm of engineered materials serve as a powerful tool to resolve many challenges found in conventional designs.

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Gijo Augustin earned the Ph.D. degree in Microwave Engineering from Cochin University of Science and Technology, India in 2009. He occupied various research positions at Indian Institute of Science, Royal Military College of Canada and National Institute of Scientific

Research, Canada and explored his passion in RF Antenna Engineering. His research interests include Ultra-wideband antennas, Cognitive radio antennas, Circular polarized ring array antennas, Dual polarized MIMO antennas and Metamaterial based antennas. He is a member of IEEE and contributing as a reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation and IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

Bybi P. Chacko received the Ph.D. degree in Microwave Engineering from Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), India in 2010. Since 2012 she has been a postdoctoral researcher with National Institute of Scientific

Research (INRS), Montreal, Canada. Her research interests include Ultra-wideband antennas, Cognitive radio antennas, MIMO antennas and Metamaterial based antennas. She is a member of IEEE and contributing as a reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation and IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

Tayeb A. Denidni (SM’09)

received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Laval University, Quebec City, QC, Canada, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. From 1994 to 2000, he was a Professor with the

Department of Engineering, Université du Quebec in Rimouski (UQAR), Rimouski, QC, Canada, where he founded the Telecommunications laboratory. Since August 2000, he has been with the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Université du Quebec, Montreal, QC, Canada. He found RF Laboratory at INRS-EMT, Montreal. He has extensive experience with antenna design and is leading a large Research Group. His research interests include Reconfigurable antennas using EBG and FSS structures, Dielectric resonator antennas, Metamaterial antennas, Adaptive arrays, Switched multibeam antenna arrays, Ultra-wideband antennas, Microwave and development for wireless communications systems. Dr. Denidni served as a Principal Investigator on many research projects sponsored by NSERC, FCI, and numerous industries. From 2008 to 2010, he served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. From 2005 to 2007, he served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters. Since November 2015, he has served as an Associate Editor for IET Electronics Letters. In 2012 and 2013, he was the recipient of the Outstanding Research and Teaching Achievements by INRS.

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