Polarforming Design with Phase Shifter Based Polarization Reconfigurable Antennas

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new form of polarization reconfigurable antennas (PRAs) that can form linear, circular, and general elliptical polarizations assisted by phase shifters (PSs). With PRAs, polarforming is achieved, which enables the antenna to shape its polarization into a desired state for aligning with that of the received electromagnetic (EM) wave or reconfiguring that of the transmit EM wave. To demonstrate the benefits of polarforming, we investigate a PRA-aided single-input single-output (SISO) communication system equipped with tunable PSs for polarization adaptation. We characterize the achievable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver as a function of the phase shifts of PS-based PRAs. Moreover, we develop an alternating optimization approach to maximize the SNR by optimizing the phase shifts at both the transmitter and receiver. Finally, comprehensive simulation results are presented, which not only validate the effectiveness of polarforming in mitigating the channel depolarization effects, but also demonstrate its substantial performance improvement over conventional systems.