| This dissertation presents a new class of antennas called ‘self-structuring antennas’ (SSAs). SSAs are capable of altering their electrical characteristics in response to their electromagnetic environment. These electrical characteristics are altered by controlling the states of electrical switches on the radiating structure that influence the current distribution on the antenna. Sensors evaluate the electromagnetic characteristics of the antenna for a configuration of switch states. The sensors send this information to an embedded microprocessor that makes decisions on the future configurations of switch states on the radiating structure.; When the possible switch state combinations become too numerous for the microprocessor to search exhaustively, binary search algorithms are employed to reduce the total search time. The performance of random, simulated annealing (SA), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), and genetic algorithms (GAs) are investigated.; Measurements of a prototype SSA system are discussed. Computer simulations are presented to gain an understanding of the characteristics of SSAs by building from simple to more complicated structures. Possible future research related to SSAs is presented. |
