To meet the demands of maritime transportation on ships, including satellite positioning, wireless communication, and radio frequency identification (RFID) for cargo handling management, a function reconfigurable antenna based on liquid metal is proposed in this paper. The antenna is composed of 3-D-printed hollow cavities, a two-step impedance feeding sheet, and two feeding probes. The 3-D-printed hollow cavities contain a big hollow helix cavity, a hollow cone loaded cylinder cavity, four hollow cylinder cavities, and four small hollow helix cavities. By filling the liquid metal into different hollow cavities, reconfigurable functions are generated, including right-handed circular polarization (RHCP), omnidirectional linear polarization (O-LP), pattern reconfigurable circular polarization, and omnidirectional left-handed circular polarization (O-LHCP). To illustrate this, a prototype is fabricated using 3-D-printed photopolymer resin and etching technology. The measurement results agree well with the simulated ones in terms of return loss, radiation pattern, gain, and axial ratio (AR). For the five reconfigurable states, the measured relative bandwidths for |S₁₁| < −10 dB are 44.7%, 41.7%, 30.4%, 28.1%, and 10.8%, respectively, which covers the bands of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS), wireless communication system, and RFID communication system. Attributing to the advantages of its compact structure, flexible conversion, and good performance, the proposed antenna is a good candidate for maritime transportation applications.

中文翻译：

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基于液态金属的功能可重构天线

为了满足船舶海上运输需求，包括卫星定位，无线通信和用于货物处理管理的射频识别（RFID），提出了一种基于液态金属的功能可重构天线。天线由3D打印的空心空腔，两级阻抗馈电板和两个馈电探针组成。3-D打印的空心腔包含一个大的空心螺旋腔，一个空心圆锥加载的圆柱腔，四个空心圆柱腔和四个小的空心螺旋腔。通过将液态金属填充到不同的空心腔中，可生成可重构功能，包括右旋圆极化（RHCP），全向线性极化（O-LP），图形可重构圆极化，全向左旋圆极化（O-LHCP）。为了说明这一点，使用3-D打印的光敏聚合物树脂和蚀刻技术制造了原型。在回波损耗，辐射方向图，增益和轴向比（AR）方面，测量结果与模拟结果非常吻合。对于五个可重新配置状态，|的相对带宽S ₁₁ | <-10 dB分别为44.7％，41.7％，30.4％，28.1％和10.8％，涵盖了全球导航卫星系统（GNSS），无线通信系统和RFID通信系统的频带。由于其紧凑的结构，灵活的转换和良好的性能，所提出的天线是海上运输应用的良好选择。