Digital Matching of a Radio-Frequency Antenna

The field of antenna technology, particularly electrically small antennas, has long been plagued by the challenges of tuning, matching, and adapting these antennas to a variety of environments. Small antennas, beneficial because of their size, often struggle when changing environmental factors affect their operational capacities. These challenges indicate a clear need for a new adaptive technology. Typically, methods have largely relied on analog tuning mechanisms, which lack the precision and flexibility offered by digital solutions. This limited scope often results in impedance mismatch that leads to signal loss and reduction in the overall system performance. Furthermore, traditional approaches have failed to adequately adapt to the ever-changing spatial and temporal dynamics of antenna environments.

Technology Description

This technology is a matching technique for electrically small antennas, achieved through a unique configuration of digital circuit blocks. This arrangement includes an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a digital filter, and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), connected in a feedback order. The transfer function response between the antenna and the system's output port is tuned, enabling voltage or current sensing at various circuit nodes with the ADCs and modification of these measurements with the digital filters. The DACs consequently drive other circuit nodes to elicit the desired circuit response. What differentiates this technology is its adaptability. The technique allows a matched antenna to adjust to alterations in its environment, considerably enhancing its applicability and adaptability. Furthermore, in some embodiments, digital non-Foster circuit blocks are introduced, elevating the invention's potential resilience and performance further.