Mechanically tunable meander antenna for cognitive radio

In a recent communication, we presented a compact multi-frequency meander antenna [1]. This structure has a potential to be reconfigurable by using varactor diode. We plan to present this study in a future conference. In this paper, we present a mechanically tunable meander antenna by adjusting a floating ground plane placed under the meander structure. the use of mechanical tunable technique is very interesting because it provides a very simple handling of the power, no risk of nonlinearity and a continuous tunable capability. We present in this paper two possibilities of tunable device, one with the displacement of the floating ground plane and the second with the use of moving copper wires. Simulated and measured results are presented and discussed.