Received 2 March 2021; revised 15 March 2021; accepted 19 March 2021.

Date of publication 29 March 2021; date of current version 7 April 2021.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/OJAP.2021.3069325

Liquid Antennas: Past, Present and Future

YI HUANG 1 (Fellow, IEEE), LEI XING 2 (Member, IEEE), CHAOYUN SONG 3 (Member, IEEE),
STEPHEN WANG4 (Senior Member, IEEE), AND FATMA ELHOUNI1
1 Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K.

2 College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

3 School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, U.K.

4 Huawei Technologies R&D (U.K.) Ltd., Ipswich IP5 3RE, U.K.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Y. HUANG (e-mail: [email protected])

This work was supported by U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under Grant EP/P015751/1.
(Lei Xing and Chaoyun Song contributed equally to this work.)

ABSTRACT The liquid antenna, as a new member of the antenna family, has drawn significant and
increasing attention from both academia and industry due to its unique features. In this paper, a com-
prehensive review on this technology is presented which covers both metallic and non-metallic liquid
antennas. Non-metallic liquid antennas are further divided into water-based and non-water-based liquid
antennas. We first review and compare different liquid antennas and highlight the major developments
in the past. Detailed discussions on state-of-the-art designs and current technical challenges are then
presented, and finally the ways forward for the future are suggested. As a special feature, an in-depth
review and discussion on materials for liquid antennas are provided which was not well covered in the
literature in the past, important properties of selected materials are given in three comparison tables
which can serve as antenna material selection references. It is shown that Galinstan is probably the best
choice for metallic liquid antennas while ionic liquid materials are the preferred choice for dielectric
liquid antennas. The challenges of making the liquid antenna for real-world applications are identified
and discussed. It is believed that a liquid antenna implemented in radio systems is probably just around
the corner.

INDEX TERMS Antennas, antenna designs, liquid antennas, liquid materials, reconfigurable antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION frequencies (several GHz) with a relatively compact size

N ANTENNA is a critical component in radio com- and low cost [2]. Thus, DRAs have found many real-world
A munications and radar systems as it can transmit
and/or receive electromagnetic signals efficiently and act
applications.
Liquid metal antennas, as another alternative, were intro-
as the interface between circuits and radio waves. The duced in 1990s when people wanted to make flexible and
antenna performance makes a direct and major impact on even reconfigurable antennas [3], [4], mercury was the obvi-
the system performance. Antennas are traditionally made of ous choice for such an application, however, it is toxic and
metal to meet various requirements. As time goes by, the expensive, thus, it is not suitable for practical applications.
limitations of the conventional metal antenna for some appli- Since the liquid (metallic and non-metallic) antenna can offer
cations gradually became apparent, and alternative antennas many attractive and unique features (e.g., the reconfigurabil-
have therefore been proposed. ity and flexibility), withstand mechanical deformation (such
For example, dielectric resonant antennas (DRAs) were as bending, stretching, folding, and twisting when used in
introduced in 1980s [1]. The original intention was to a flexible substrate or holder) and are able to return to their
deal with the possible high loss of metal antennas at original shape due to its highly reversible nature, thus, it
high frequencies (around mm-wave at the time), and later has attracted a significant and growing attention for the past
it was found that DRAs are also suitable for lower 20 years [5].

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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It is interesting to note that water was first employed

to make an antenna in 1999 [6] – because the researchers
found it hard to make their complex DRA prototype using
solid materials in the lab. They soon realized the many
advantages of using water to make a DRA: “the dielec-
tric can easily be constrained to the desired shape; there
are no airgaps between the probe and the dielectric, or
between the dielectric and the conducting plane; when deal-
ing with physically large DRAs at low frequencies, water
is a low cost and readily accessible material with a high FIGURE 1. Classification of liquid antennas.
dielectric constant.” Since then, the interest in develop-
ing liquid antennas has been growing steadily [7]–[24],
because it has been gradually realized the potential bene- of liquid and a dielectric container/holder may be required
fits of the liquid antenna which is not just another DRA, but (but not always). Many liquid antennas have been designed,
an antenna may offer what a conventional solid DRA cannot made and tested. They could be categorized in different ways
offer. in order to better study their special features. For example,
Today, we can find over 1700 publications on liquid anten- some people have divided them into conductive antennas and
nas in the IEEE Xplore, of which over 440 are journal papers. non-conductive antennas, or liquid DRAs and liquid-assisted
There have been a lot of interesting developments and inno- antennas (which are hybrid antennas formed by liquid and
vative designs in this area. However, there has been very metal antennas). In this paper we divide them into metallic
little work on summarizing and analyzing these activities. and non-metallic liquid antennas, and the latter are further
A major effort is the recently published paper [24] which divided into water-based and non-water-based antennas as
has reviewed over 100 papers but limited to reconfigurable shown Fig. 1. We will use this classification to study the
liquid antennas. Thus, it is the right time to have a critical antennas in each category and identify their special features,
and in-depth review on liquid antennas, not just about what advantages and disadvantages.
has been done, but more importantly about the technologies It should be pointed out that metallic liquid materials
and challenges. are conductive while non-metallic liquid materials could be
The main objective of this paper is therefore to con- conductive or non-conductive – this will be further discussed
duct a comprehensive review on various liquid antennas in the next sections. Water-based materials have been most
(not limited to reconfigurable antennas) and related mate- widely used for making liquid antennas, the main reason
rials, highlight the major developments in the past, discuss is due to their easy accessibility and low-cost, not their
current state-of-the-art antenna designs and technologies, performance. As shown in the next section, a recent study
and then identify the best possible ways forward for the on liquid materials has revealed that better dielectric liquid
future. materials (than water) for antennas are developed.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section II
is to classify liquid antennas in order to extract the com- III. LIQUID MATERIALS FOR ANTENNAS
mon features of each group. Section III presents the study Liquid materials are the foundation for developing good
on liquid antenna materials which are classified as metallic liquid antennas: different material properties may lead to dif-
and non-metallic, water-based and non-water-based liquids. ferent antenna designs, performances, and applications. The
Section IV is to review liquid metal antennas where the main material properties of interest to us are the permittivity,
pros and cons are summarized. Section V is focused on conductivity, and permeability (the relative permeability of
water-based antennas: both conductive and non-conductive almost all liquid materials is 1 except some ferrofluids hav-
antennas are examined. Non-water-based liquid antennas ing a relative permeability of 2-3, thus the permeability is
are introduced and discussed in Section VI. Some novel not discussed here). These electromagnetic (EM) properties
antenna examples are also presented in this section to demon- are functions of frequency and temperature. The mechani-
strate the usefulness and special features of new liquid cal, chemical, and other relevant parameters (including cost)
antennas. Section VII highlights the major advantages of should also be considered when selecting the right material
liquid antennas. A comparison of various liquid antennas for making the antenna.
with the conventional antenna is provided. A detailed discus-
sion on technical challenges is also presented. It is concluded A. METALLIC LIQUIDS
with our views on the future research directions and potential The most well-known metallic liquid is mercury (Hg), which
applications. is the only metal in liquid form at room temperature with
a melting point of −39 ◦ C, but it is toxic and expensive.
II. LIQUID ANTENNA CLASSIFICATION Alternative metallic liquid materials are mostly composites/
Liquid antennas are a relatively new type of antennas, unlike alloys formed by conductive nanoparticles in less conduc-
the conventional metal antennas and DRAs, they are made tive fluids. Mercury can be used for creating liquid alloys,

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 TABLE 1. Properties of popular metallic liquid materials.
but gallium-based alloys show excellent thermal and elec-
trical conductivities with low viscosity and non-toxicity.
Their melting points are either lower than or close to
room temperature [25]. For example, eutectic gallium indium
alloy, EGaIn (75% Ga and 25% In), has a melting point of
16 ◦ C and an electrical conductivity of 3.4 × 106 S/m (note:
it is 58 × 106 S/m for copper) [18], [25], [26]. Once exposed
to air, this liquid alloy reacts with oxygen to form a thin
surface oxide layer, which improves mechanical stability and
significantly prevents evaporation. Such advantages improve
the performance of EGaIn in flexible liquid antennas with-
out affecting the overall conductivity and antenna efficiency.
Galinstan is another liquid metal alloy recently used for mak- TABLE 2. Water-based liquid properties (1 GHz, room temperature).
ing foldable and stretchable antennas [5], [11], [27], which
comprises of 68.5% gallium, 21.5% indium and 10% tin.
It has similar performance and features as EGaIn but has
a lower melting point (−19 ◦ C) which makes it more attrac-
tive for real-world applications. There are other liquid metal
materials (but not many) suitable for making antennas, for
example, the GaIn10 ink which is another conductive fluid
composed of 90% gallium, 10% indium and approximately
0.026% oxygen (to make it viscous enough to be used as an
ink) [28], and carbon nanotube or metal nanoparticle-based
fluids are also new metallic liquid materials. EGaIn parti-
cles were used to create soft circuit boards, and to inject
and sinter these particles in microchannels to form con-
ductive pathways that can serve as antennas with tunable
frequencies [29]. Silver nano-ink has been employed for
printing antennas, but its melting point is high and becomes
dry at room temperature [30]. The conductivity of these liq-
uid metals is typically in the order of 106 S/m, which is point (= melting point) [31]. The value decreases with the
large enough to realize high radiation efficiency when used increase of PG percentage. The mixture can remain liquid
as antenna materials. The summary of the most popular down to −55 ◦ C when the PG concentration reaches 70%.
metallic liquid materials for antennas is given in Table 1, The PG is effective to reduce the freezing point of the water
which shows their conductivities, compositions and melting mixture, but it increases the loss tangent and affects the
points. The stability and cost for most of them are com- antenna efficiency. Similar trends can be found when water is
parable. The thermal conductivity of these materials is far mixed with ethanol. The relative permittivity εr , loss tangent
superior to ordinary non-metallic liquids. The selections are and freezing point temperature of these materials are given
limited, a clear winner seems to be Galinstan in this category. in Table 2. Most of their freezing points are just slightly
below 0 ◦ C. A common problem of these liquids is that their
B. NON-METALLIC LIQUIDS: WATER-BASED EM properties are sensitive to temperature and frequency as
Water is the most popular liquid on Earth, plentiful and easily shown in Fig. 2 (note: loss tan δ = εr /εr = σ/ωε) – this
accessible. Water-based liquids could be pure (or distilled) property of water applies to most water-based liquids [32].
water, tap water, saline (or salty) water, and sea water. For Their boiling points are around 100 ◦ C. Overall, water with
simplicity, we can just divide them into pure water (no salt) 5 – 10% of PG seems to be the best candidate for making
and saline water (with different percentages of salt). Thus, antennas in this category.
tap water is considered as pure water while sea water is
considered as a special saline water. C. NON-METALLIC LIQUIDS: NON-WATER-BASED
For antenna applications, a major drawback of water is To find better liquids for antennas, many non-water-based
that its EM properties are sensitive to temperature. When liquids have been investigated [33], [34] which include ionic
temperature is below 0 ◦ C, it becomes ice which is solid and liquids, low-loss organic solvents (such as ethyl acetate, ace-
has very different EM properties and physical size. Saline tone), and various oils (e.g., mineral/ transformer oil). The
water is better but offers limited improvement (depending electrical conductivities of most of them are found to be less
on the percentage of salt, it can maintain as liquid down to than 0.001 S/m, and their relative permittivity are typically
−32 ◦ C when saturated). A mixture of water and propylene from 2 to about 30 over a large frequency range. Most impor-
glycol (PG, as an anti-freezer) can produce a lower freezing tantly, their material properties are much more stable against

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TABLE 3. Non-water-based liquid properties (1 GHz, room temperature).

FIGURE 2. Relative complex permittivity εr of pure water as a function of frequency

and temperature: (a) real part (εr ); (b) imaginary part (εr ) [32].

temperature and frequency variations than water-based mate-

rials. For example, ethyl acetate is a liquid organic solvent, of the low permittivity and low loss ionic liquids. The costs
its relative permittivity is around 7 and the loss tangent of these materials are reasonable. Their liquid temperature
< 0.04. In terms of the thermal effects, ethyl acetate has sta- range is typically from −50 ◦ C to + 70 ◦ C, which is suitable
ble performance until 50 ◦ C, and its freezing point is below for most application environments.
−20 ◦ C. Oils could also be used to make antennas, but their The conductivity of solvents and oils is very low (typi-
relative permittivities are relatively small (typically around cally between 10−3 and 10−9 S/m). The presence of acids,
2) and may not be ideal for many antennas. Both solvents bases, salts, and dissolved carbon dioxide may increase their
and oils may have a wider liquid range when compared with conductivity. For ionic liquids, the low-loss candidates have
water, but generally they are not considered safe or environ- a comparable conductivity to solvents. There are some rel-
mentally friendly, because they are often flammable, volatile atively conductive ionic liquid materials, such as C2MIM
at elevated temperatures and cause safety concerns in high N(CN)2 (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide) whose
power applications. conductivity is 2.83 S/m, comparable to that of the saline
Ionic liquids, as a very new material for RF/microwave water [32]. The highest one we found is a PEDOT:PSS:RTIL
applications, could become excellent candidates to address mixture with a conductivity of 13600 S/m, thus, it is pos-
the above-mentioned limitations of water-based liquid mate- sible to use such a non-metallic liquid to make conductive
rials. Ionic liquids have excellent material properties in terms liquid antennas which is an area of considerable interest but
of thermal stability, extremely low vapor pressures, reconfig- yet to be properly investigated and explored.
urable electric conductivity, large electrochemical windows, For non-metallic low-loss liquid materials, the recom-
high heat capacity, and nonflammability [34]. Room tem- mended liquids are Choline L-alanine for high permittivity
perature ionic liquids usually consist of bulky asymmetric and T-chloride for low permittivity applications due to their
organic cations, most often paired with inorganic anions. overall performance as shown in Table 3.
A comprehensive measurement campaign was conducted at
Liverpool University over the past 3 years and the EM prop- IV. LIQUID METAL ANTENNAS
erties of over 70 ionic liquids (relative permittivity and loss Unlike a conventional rigid metal antenna, a liquid metal
tangent) were obtained and summarized in [33] which could antenna is physically flexible and/or reconfigurable in gen-
be used as a material library and look-up table when looking eral. An early example of liquid metal antennas was a patch
for ionic liquids for EM applications. The measured results antenna made of mercury in 2004 [4]. Although this
demonstrated that ionic liquids had a wide selectable rel- antenna achieved comparable performance as a traditional
ative permittivity range from about 2 to 30ish whilst their patch antenna, it has never been used for applications due
loss tangent can be kept very small, down to 0.001 (for to the toxic nature of mercury. Around year 2008, EGaIn
up to 18 GHz). This implies that some ionic liquids have was discovered as a safer liquid metal alloy with stable
shown excellent EM properties. In addition, it was found that performance at room temperature, and it was then applied to
some ionic liquids had very low freezing points (< −50 ◦ C) various antenna designs [25], [26]. Examples include a fold-
and low vapor pressures [33], [34]. Unlike water-based liq- able and stretchable liquid metal planar cone antenna using
uids, the EM properties of ionic liquids are not sensitive to EGaIn and Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate [27],
frequency and temperature changes, thus they can indeed be a flexible liquid metal alloy microstrip patch antenna [35],
an excellent choice for making liquid antennas. The compar- and a liquid metal reconfigurable dipole antenna [36]. The
ison of selected non-water-based dielectric liquids (including unique advantages of liquid metal have been well utilized in
solvent, oil and ionic liquids) is provided in Table 3, in which these designs and they are patterned on highly flexible and
the relative permittivity, loss tangent, liquid range, and mate- stretchable substrate materials to realize excellent mechanical
rial stability are presented. Trihexyltetradecylphosphonium recognizability and EM performance. Microfluidic technol-
chloride (T-chloride for short) is selected as a representative ogy and liquid pumps have recently been combined with

476 VOLUME 2, 2021

liquid metal to develop reconfigurable liquid antennas [18].
The fluidic metal could travel freely within the liquid chan-
nel, thereby significantly modifying the shape of the antenna.
This cannot be realized in conventional solid metal anten-
nas. Beam steering [13], frequency reconfigurable [18], [36],
[37], and pattern reconfigurable [13], [38] liquid metal anten-
nas have been reported. Two liquid metal antenna examples
are provided in Fig. 3: (a) shows a liquid metal antenna with
reconfigurable and steerable beams which can be effectively
steered over the horizontal plane from 0 to 360 degrees,
whilst the antenna also achieved radiation efficiency over
80% at 1.8 GHz in all reconfigurable cases [13]; (b) is
a monopole antenna based on simple configurations using
microfluidic channel and liquid metal (Hg in this case) pump-
ing technology [18] which resulted in an extremely wide
frequency tuning range from 1.29 to 5.17 GHz (1:4 ratio)
and high efficiency (above 85%) over the frequency band.
Compared with electrically tunable antennas, the reconfig-
urable liquid metal antennas using microfluidic channels and
a liquid pump have a higher total efficiency as they do
not suffer from the loss due to active switches and diodes.
Moreover, the tuning range in terms of frequency and radi- FIGURE 3. (a) Pattern reconfigurable and beam steam liquid metal antenna [13];
(b) Frequency reconfigurable liquid metal monopole antenna [18].
ation pattern of liquid metal antennas is much wider than
that of the traditional antennas due to the more flexible
antenna structure variation.
The drawbacks of liquid metal antennas are that the fab-
rication process is normally more complicated than the
conventional one, and the time response of the pump-
based tunable system is much slower than that of the
electrical tuning system which is usually done via a PIN
switch. Furthermore, additional space is required for the liq-
uid pump and microfluidic channel configurations, which
may increase the overall antenna size and complexity for
real-world applications.
Apart from the microfluidic channels, liquid metal anten-
FIGURE 4. (a) Schematic illustration of the implementation of the antenna using
nas could also be encapsulated by the substrate or be Galinstan alloy and PDMS antenna substrate. (b) and (c) Photos of the tunable
sprayed onto the surface of the designed substrate [37], spherical cap antenna at two typical working situations [45].

[39], [40]. Typical rigid substrate materials (such as Rogers

RT Duroid 5880) have been used to hold liquid metal
radiating structures [37]. Flexible substrate materials (such and could be tuned from 426 to 542 MHz. It demonstrated
as PDMS [41], silicone rubber [42], and thermoplastic excellent mechanical stretchability and reconfigurability of
polyurethane (TPU) based NinjaFlex [43]) are commercially liquid metal antennas using flexible metal and substrates.
available to form the antenna substrate or microfluidic liquid Due to the non-toxic nature of liquid metal alloys (like
channels with the aid of additive manufacturing technologies EGaIn and Galinstan) and the availability of biocompati-
(e.g., 3D printing). Moreover, some state-of-the-art tech- ble and stretchable elastomer materials (such as PDMS),
niques have shown the feasibility of direct writing and liquid metal antennas are particularly suitable for wearable
printing of conductive fluids on substrates with either 2D and implantable applications in which the antenna structures
or 3D structures in high resolution [44]. need to conform to body skin and have the capability to
In [45], a liquid alloy spiral antenna was hosted by overcome mechanical deformation during movements [46].
a PDMS dome-shaped substrate, the liquid alloy (Galinstan) Liquid metal printed wireless sensor tags and wireless
was injected into the microfluidic channel network in the sil- power transfer coils have been developed to take advan-
icone with a syringe. The tunability of this antenna was not tage of the abovementioned features of flexible liquid metal
achieved by manipulating the liquid flow inside the chan- antennas [47], [48].
nel, but instead by using a pneumatic pump to vary the In [49], liquid metal alloy (Galinstan) was used to build
height of the dome structure to change the antenna operat- a fully integrated flexible electronic system which includes
ing frequency (See Fig. 4). This antenna is electrically small an NFC antenna and strain sensors. The liquid metal has been

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FIGURE 6. A sea/saline water antenna demonstrated in a video in 2009 [9].

FIGURE 5. (a) Magnified schematic illustration of the liquid-metal NFC device with
antenna, NFC chip and strain sensors. (b) Demonstration of the stretchability of the
liquid metal based wearable device [49].

printed and sandwiched between two PDMS layers to form

a skin-attachable and stretchable sensor for human motion
monitoring as shown in Fig. 5. It is a near-field coil-based
antenna operating at 13.56 MHz. This work has demonstrated
a real-world application of liquid metal antennas in flexible
and wearable electronic systems.

V. WATER-BASED LIQUID ANTENNAS

Water-based liquids are generally of low conductivity and
high permittivity as we have seen in Table 2. They are suit-
able for a DRA or a hybrid antenna formed by a metal
antenna loaded with the liquid (mainly to increase the
bandwidth and reduce the antenna size), In addition to
the flexibility and reconfigurability, they offer other ben-
efits which metallic liquid antennas do not have, such as:
a) cost-effective, eco-friendly and readily accessible (hence
the myriad of antennas in this category); b) compact size
√
because the antenna size could be reduced by a factor of εr ; FIGURE 7. (a) Prototype of a saline water monopole antenna and liquid samples.
c) a small radar cross section (RCS) if the liquid is drained (b) Calculated radiation efficiency vs conductivity of the saline water monopole
antenna at 2 GHz [12], [32].
when not in operation; d) transparency – this is attractive for
the application that the antenna should be invisible or not
obvious. Two types of water-based liquid antennas have been used on space limited navy vessels. It has certainly inspired
investigated: saline water antennas [12], [14], [50]–[59] and a lot of interesting research in water-based antennas. Major
pure water antennas [15]–[17], [60]–[70] which are discussed progresses were made in bandwidth enhancement [50], [51],
in the coming two sub-sections. reconfigurability exploration [52]–[56] and radiation effi-
ciency improvement [14], [57]–[59].
A. SALINE WATER ANTENNAS A common concern on saline water antennas is the low
Sea water can be considered as natural saline water and has efficiency which is resulted from the liquid loss tangent or
been widely used for liquid antenna research due to its avail- conductivity. A detailed experimental and numerical study on
ability and potential marine-related applications. The most this issue has been reported in [12], [32] where an optimized
well-known example is the monopole antenna developed by monopole antenna as presented in Fig. 7(a) was employed.
a U.S. navy research center as shown in Fig. 6. It was The calculated radiation efficiency as a function of the con-
a frequency reconfigurable sea water antenna and tested at ductivity of the liquid was obtained at 2 GHz and shown in
a distance over 30 miles using frequencies ranging from 2 to Fig. 7(b) which was partially validated by measurements. It
400 MHz as demonstrated in their YouTube video which was is interesting to note that the radiation efficiency is over 80%
watched over 220k times [9]. The design was possibly the when the conductivity is below 0.001 (the antenna works as
first saline water tested in a practical scenario and could be a good DRA) or above 1000 (the antenna works as a good

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FIGURE 8. (a) Prototype of a beam-steering saline water antenna; (b) Simulated and
measured directional radiation patterns in the azimuth plane at 433 MHz with different
working states: State 1 - State 4 [54].
FIGURE 9. (a) A frequency and beamwidth tunable water antenna [60]; (b) water
DRA with an auto-control system [62].

conducting antenna). The efficiency is lower between these

two cases. Seawater has a conductivity of about 3 S/m and A main problem of most saline water antennas is that
its radiation efficiency is therefore below 80%, around 70% their radiation efficiency is low due to the saline water con-
in this design which is still reasonable for many applications. ductivity of around 0.01 - 10 which is lossy as shown in
The worst case for this monopole is when the conductivity Fig. 7(b). Various techniques have been reported to improve
is around 0.1, its efficiency is dropped down to 30%. This the radiation efficiency of saline water antennas by such
reveals that the water-based antenna can achieve high effi- as adding a circular disk at the top of feeding probe [57],
ciency by properly selecting the right salt concentration and using a conducting tube and shunt-excited feeding arm [14],
antenna design. employing cylindrical metal rods surrounding the feeding
The frequency tuning for such an antenna can be contin- probe [58], and utilizing short metal tube at the base of
uous over a wide range. It can also offer at least another the water holder [59]. The main idea of these designs is to
advantage: the frequency bandwidth could be changed by add metallic element to the antenna to improve the radiation
not only the diameter of the monopole but also the dielec- efficiency of the saline water antenna accordingly.
tric layer between the ground plane and the monopole.
A demonstration example was given in [51] where a saline B. PURE WATER ANTENNAS
water antenna achieved a fractional bandwidth > 70% for Compared with saline water, pure water has a lower conduc-
S11 < −10 dB while its equivalent metal antenna has only tivity (a higher radiation efficiency in this case) and larger
got a bandwidth less than 20%. permittivity (hence a smaller antenna). It has therefore been
In addition to the frequency reconfigurability, other recon- used to make a DRA or a hybrid (with metal) antenna. As
figurabilities of saline water antennas have also been stud- expected, more pure water antennas have been developed
ied. For example, parasitic monopoles around the driven than saline water antennas over the years although they offer
monopole are implemented to realize pattern reconfigura- the same benefits in terms of the flexibility, reconfigurability,
tion [54], [55]. As shown in Fig. 8, when only the driven conformability, et al.
monopole is excited, the antenna has an omnidirectional Various water antennas can be found in the literature:
radiation pattern; when the driven and selected parasitic a frequency and beamwidth tunable water antenna was
monopoles are in use, the water-filled parasitic monopoles reported [60] and shown in Fig. 9(a) where an L-shaped
would work as reflectors. By configuring the adjacent metallic strip is adopted as the feeding structure of the
parasitic monopoles as reflectors or directors, a directive antenna in order to effectively broaden the operating band-
pattern towards a desired direction can be generated [54]. width. The L-shaped strip feeder and a rectangular water

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from the dense dielectric patch antenna and applied in water

patch antenna designs as shown in Fig. 10(a) where an
L-shaped probe fed rectangular water patch antenna was
introduced. It has a similar working principle as the metal
patch antenna. Due to the transparency of water, the
antenna was well integrated with solar cells [15]. Further
modifications based on water patch structures were produced
and presented [69], as shown in Fig. 10(b), both the patch
FIGURE 10. Water patch antennas. (a) The water patch antenna integrated with
and the ground plane are transparent. A circularly polar-
solar cells [15]; (b) An optically transparent water patch antenna [69]. ized water patch antenna with two diagonal truncated square
water patches was given in [70].
In addition to saline water and pure water, an aqueous
dielectric resonator constitute the driven element. Five iden- potassium chloride (KCI) solution is another water-based
tical rectangular water dielectric elements act as directors to liquid reported in the literature. In [71], a fluid switch using
control the beamwidth. By varying the height of the liquid a KCI solution was employed in a frequency-agile Vivaldi
water level in the driven element, the antenna is tuned to the antenna. Two operating frequency bands were achieved by
desired operational frequency and beamwidth. Polarization using different back-slot lengths. When the conductive fluid
switchable water DRAs have also been developed. One was pumped in the switch, the back-slot presented a shorter
example was given in [61]. Most of these reconfigurable effective length and produced a higher operating frequency
water antennas are preconfigured or tuned manually. To band. To operate in the lower band, the fluid was drained
overcome this problem, a frequency reconfigurable water from the switch, allowing the electric surface current to use
DRA with an auto-control system was proposed in [62] the full length of the back-slot. The fluid switch improves
and shown in Fig. 9(b). It achieved a high total effi- the isolation of the two bands and avoids biasing line distur-
ciency (> 80%) across a wide frequency range (from 168 to bances. More recently, the authors of [72] and [73] proposed
474 MHz for S11 < −10 dB). Various tuning states with a new fluid antenna system (FAS) where a position-flexible
diverse combinations of water blocks and water heights were antenna can switch its location freely within a given space.
realized in the structure. The developed liquid control system It was demonstrated that even with a tiny space, a single-
managed the water in a desired way and greatly improved antenna FAS can outperform a multiple-antenna maximum
the frequency tuning efficiently. Another challenge associ- ratio combining system in terms of outage probability if
ated with water DRA is the possible low efficiency or narrow the number of locations (or ports) the fluid antenna can be
bandwidth, especially at higher frequencies. To overcome switched to is large enough.
these limitations, a hybrid antenna can be produced by com- Table 4 compares some selected water antennas reviewed
bining a DRA and a metal antenna of two different but in this section. We have tried to make a wide selection of
close resonant frequencies into one antenna structure so as different types of antennas to provide a good coverage of the
to broaden the combined bandwidth and increase the radia- state-of-the-art of this technology. It can be seen that vari-
tion efficiency. Two hybrid antenna examples can be found ous water antennas have been developed with their special
in [19], [63]. Other selected interesting design examples features and limitations. Most of them have a broad band-
include a water loaded leaky-wave antenna with reconfig- width and decent radiation efficiency at lower frequencies
urable radiation patterns [64], a frequency reconfigurable with advantages in size reduction and low-cost. Most of
metal dipole antenna with bow-tie shaped water loading [65], them can provide discrete or continuous frequency tuning,
a pattern reconfigurable monopole antenna with arc-shape and reconfiguration in terms of the radiation pattern and/or
water grating [66], and a compact water loaded frequency polarization. However, there are practical concerns on loss,
reconfigurable monopole antenna for DVB-H (digital video frequency and temperature changes. The knowledge gained
broadcasting) applications [67]. from the water-based liquid antenna studies could be a valu-
Pure water as transparent loading material has great poten- able reference for non-water-based liquid antenna and future
tials in wearable and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Its liquid antenna designs.
flexibility and unobtrusiveness can enhance users’ comfort.
An example can be found in [68], where an optically trans-
parent wearable antenna using pure water and conductive VI. NON-WATER-BASED LIQUID ANTENNAS
mesh was proposed. The pure water worked as a reflector to As discussed in Section III, although anti-freeze could be
transform the bidirectional radiation pattern of the antenna to used to extend the liquid range of water in terms of the
a unidirectional broadside pattern. The antenna achieved freezing point, the EM properties of these water-based
a radiation efficiency of 51% at 2.45 GHz and produced materials are too sensitive to temperature and frequency
a low specific absorption rate (SAR). changes for some applications. In such scenarios, water-
Apart from using water as a resonator or dielectric loading, based antenna may experience large frequency shift or
pure water can also act as a reflector. The idea originated resonant mode variation which results in the reduction of

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TABLE 4. Performance comparison of different types of water-based liquid antennas.

the tolerance and reliability of a radio system. Thus, non- of oil materials is very low, ranging typically from 2 to
water-based liquid materials have recently been developed 3. The antenna size could be relatively large if such oils
and used for making liquid antennas. These antennas use are employed for making the DRA. They have been uti-
typically either solvent and oil or ionic liquids. lized as antenna tuning and dielectric loading materials to
realize liquid-assisted antenna. Two examples can be found
in [76], [77], where the oil was pumped into a cavity under-
A. LIQUID ANTENNAS USING SOLVENT AND OIL
neath the typical metal antenna radiators (e.g., patch), as
In this group, ethyl acetate has been used to develop liq- shown in Fig. 12: by manipulating the volume of loading
uid DRAs with the combination of glass housing material oil, the antenna frequency could be tuned. The patch example
to achieve reconfigurability. References [74] and [75] are has achieved a wide tunable impedance bandwidth of 32%
two examples realized reconfigurable pattern and polar- from 1.42 to 1.96 GHz, which is much wider than that of
ization respectively by pumping the liquid into or out of a conventional microstrip patch antenna. Whilst the radiation
two different parts of the antenna to produce different efficiency across the realized frequency band is very high
modes/polarisations, as shown in Fig. 11. Over 80% radia- (> 85%), demonstrating that such dielectric oil-based mate-
tion efficiency is obtained in the frequency range of 3.5 to rials can be an effective solution for making liquid-assisted
4.5 GHz. Although ethyl acetate seems to have lower loss (or hybrid) reconfigurable antennas.
and wider liquid range compared with water, it is a type of
solvent, which means that it may not be chemically compati-
ble with most plastic materials. For example, the 3D-printed B. IONIC LIQUID ANTENNAS
container and liquid pipes might be dissolved after a certain There have been some ionic liquid antennas reported in the
period of time when having ethyl acetate inside of them. literature. In [78], choline L-alanine was, for the first time,
Alternative stable and low-loss liquid materials could be used to develop a wideband circularly polarized (CP) liquid
transformation oil and Castor oil, which are more chemi- DRA shown in Fig. 13(a). The feeding structure is of a spe-
cally stable than solvent. However, the relative permittivity cial spiral shape; thus, the antenna would be really hard to

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HUANG et al.: LIQUID ANTENNAS: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

FIGURE 11. (a) Pattern reconfigurable DRA [74] with/without the liquid filled
between the container and glass DR; (b) Two-zone CP polarization reconfigurable
liquid DRA using ethyl acetate [75].

realize if the antenna were made of a solid dielectric material.

The liquid range of this liquid compound is from −56 ◦ C
to 186 ◦ C, its electrical conductivity is about 0.00021 S/m. FIGURE 12. Two frequency tunable antennas using liquid oil as loading materials.

Furthermore, it is non-toxic, nonflammable and does not

evaporate. The antenna has realized 34% CP bandwidth multiple resonant modes and resulted in an extremely wide
(from 1.5 to 2.1 GHz) and over 80% total efficiency across combined bandwidth (73.5%). This design has achieved an
the frequency band of interest. The antenna performance is efficient > 80% over the desired frequency band, and the
comparable to typical DRAs, but its overall size is reduced electrical size of the radiator is less than 0.4 λ0 , showing that
to 0.43 × 0.43 × 0.09λ30 . This example has demonstrated such ionic liquids can be indeed used to develop excellent
the advantage of using an ionic liquid material. liquid antennas or hybrid antennas.
Another low-loss ionic liquid material, T-chloride, was In addition to the well-known reconfigurability of a liquid
used as a new type of dielectric antenna loading material antenna in frequency, radiation pattern and polarization as
(with relative permittivity = 3.2) in [79]. The conductivity already mentioned, a very special design utilizing two liquids
of this liquid is around 0.00025 S/m, while its loss tangent is of different permittivities has achieved passive beam steering
smaller than 0.001 at operational frequency. Moreover, it is due to the fluidity and gravity of the liquid, without using
a colorless liquid with a relatively low density of 0.895 g/mL electrical or mechanical steering system [23]. The antenna is
at room temperature. Several monopole antennas in this presented in Fig. 14(a) and its radiation patterns for 5 dif-
paper have shown that the antenna size could be reduced ferent antenna positions are passively steered upwards as
by 40% when using such an ionic liquid loading, while the shown in Fig. 14(b). It could be used for applications such
total efficiency over a very wide frequency band is greater as satellite communications or GPS where a stable beam
than 85%. A hybrid antenna of a DRA and a magnetoelec- towards the sky is required. The two low-loss liquids are:
tric dipole (ME dipole) was proposed in [80] and shown in perfluorodecalin with a relative permittivity of about 2.1 and
Fig. 13(b). Taking advantage of the liquid dielectrics, the ME acetone mixtures with acetone oxime with a relative permit-
dipole was fully immersed into the ionic liquid to reduce the tivity of about 13. The selection of the materials is very
size and especially the height, at the same time it produced important since they can maintain independence within the

482 VOLUME 2, 2021

TABLE 5. Performance comparison of different liquid antennas and solid traditional antennas.

FIGURE 13. Two ionic liquid antenna examples. (a) Broadband CP liquid
antenna [78]. (b) Hybrid liquid DRA and ME dipole antenna [80]. FIGURE 14. A passive beam-steering liquid antenna. (a) The structure of the
antenna. (b) Radiation patterns for five different antenna positions [23].

same container without chemical reaction and immiscible or antennas since they work best in this mode (although they
resolvable with each other. can act as conductive antennas whose loss is high in general).
They are compared in terms of the following parameters:
VII. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION a) Antenna efficiency: Most of them can achieve high effi-
We have now discussed all types of liquid antennas and ciency. For water-based antennas, the efficiency is normally
their associated materials. A performance comparison table not high, but it depends on the operational frequency, the
of the metallic liquid antennas, water-based antennas, non- water “quality”, and the antenna design. At lower frequencies
water-based liquid antennas, and traditional metal antennas (below 1GHz), the dielectric loss of pure water can be small,
is provided in Table 5 where both water-based antennas and thus the antenna efficiency can be relatively high as shown in
non-water-based liquid antennas are assumed to be dielectric Table 4. It should be pointed out that the antenna efficiency

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is also affected by the housing material, not just the It is apparent that each type of antennas has its own
liquid. advantages and limitations. A very important and widely
b) Performance stability against temperature: Overall, tra- asked question is: what are the main advantages that liquid
ditional antennas outperform liquid antennas. For metallic antennas have over the traditional antenna? As we have seen
liquids, as we have seen in Table 1, the metallic liquid is in this review, liquid antennas have demonstrated that they
sensitive to temperature, even the best one (Galinstan) has can offer the following main advantages over the traditional
a limited liquid range (from −19 ◦ C). Water-based liquid antenna:
antennas have the worst performance, their freezing/melting • Reconfigurability,
point is high, and the EM properties are sensitive to the • Flexibility and conformability,
frequency and temperature change. However, non-water- • Fluidity,
based, especially ionic liquid antennas have shown very good • Transparency,
and stable performance over a very large temperature and • Size reduction.
frequency range.
c) Reconfigurability methods: Liquid antennas have more There are also other possible benefits such as low-cost,
options than traditional antennas. In addition to elec- eco-friendly and low radar cross section which will depend
trical reconfigurable method (normally based on switch on the specific design. Another potential advantage is to inte-
or varactor), they can also be reconfigured through grate liquid antenna with the cooling system of the device,
mechanical (e.g., liquid pumps) and even gravitational resulting in space and energy saving which is an interesting
methods using the fluidic feature. Furthermore, chemi- area to be further explored.
cal and thermal methods (not suitable for metallic liquid In terms of the suitable frequencies, most of the developed
antennas) are also possible but good designs are not liquid antennas are for 2 MHz to 18 GHz. In principle, liquid
available yet. antennas are suitable for any frequency. But in practice, the
d) Design flexibility: This could include a lot of things. frequency range may be limited by issues such as the dielec-
Here we mean the flexibility by changing the antenna phys- tric loss, especially at higher frequencies. The good news is
ical configuration (such as the size, shape, and feeding) that some ionic liquids have shown excellent performance at
to meet the design specifications. The conventional metal higher frequencies (higher than 18 GHz which was limited
antenna is the best, the metallic liquid antenna comes second, by measurement facilities [33]).
and the non-metallic liquid antenna is the worst in this regard. Although a considerable amount of progress has been
The main reason is that, unlike a metallic antenna, a dielec- made on the research and development of liquid antennas
tric liquid antenna (like a solid DRA) performs well only over the past 20 years, it is a pity that we have not yet
when a resonant mode is excited at the desired frequency seen it implemented in a commercial product. To make it
which has placed certain restrictions on the physical dimen- a reality, in addition to finding better and smarter liquid
sions and feeding method of the antenna. For example, we antenna designs, we also need to deal with the following
cannot make a very thin or electrically small dielectric liq- challenges:
uid antenna to work well, but we can do it using conductive 1) How to implement the reconfigurability: To realize the
materials. This is a main drawback of non-conductive liquid special reconfigurability of a liquid antenna, the current
antennas. On the other hand, liquid can be used to form mechanical pumping method may be acceptable for
a hybrid antenna which offers a flexibility not available in some applications, but it is not convenient/practical
traditional antennas. enough for most, as the system is not small, and the
e) Fabrication: Unlike a conventional solid antenna, the slow tuning speed could also be an issue for practical
liquid in most liquid antennas has to be guided or contained use, a better solution is required.
in a holder. The whole system should be sealed to avoid 2) How to make it robust enough: Ionic liquids seem to
leakage. Thus, the fabrication process or packaging of a liq- be the best choice for dielectric liquid antennas due
uid antenna is more complicated than that of the traditional to their low loss and stable temperature and frequency
antenna. The metallic liquid antenna is ranked higher than response. However, all liquid antennas have not been
the non-metallic liquid antenna, because some metallic liq- thoroughly tested and evaluated for different envi-
uid antennas could be fabricated using printing technology ronments, dielectric containers, and microwave power
and no holder is required. levels (power handling capacity is a very important
f) Safety: This is an important issue and could refer to parameter for many applications). The robustness of
safety for human being as well as for environment in differ- such antennas is mostly unknown yet.
ent scenarios, including such as high-power operation, harsh 3) How to fabricate and package the antenna: The labo-
environment, aging, et al. The traditional antennas are well ratory prototypes are for research and proof of concept
established and are made very safe while for liquid anten- purposes. How to fabricate an industrial standard liq-
nas, they are relatively new and to be further investigated uid antenna on a large scale is yet to be developed.
and tested although water-based materials and ionic liquids Furthermore, problems associated with the packaging
are safe to use. and feeding of the antenna are to be resolved.

484 VOLUME 2, 2021

 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The financial support from the EPSRC of the U.K. is grate-
fully acknowledged. The authors are also very thankful
for the useful discussions with other colleagues, especially
Prof. J. Xiao and Dr. E. Bennett at the Chemistry Department
at Liverpool University on materials, and Prof. K. M. Luk
at Hong Kong City University on antenna designs.

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[70] J. Sun and K.-M. Luk, “A circularly-polarized water patch antenna,” LEI XING (Member, IEEE) received the B.Eng. and
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 926–929, M.Eng. degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical
Jun. 2020. University, Xi’an, China, in 2009 and 2012,
[71] C. Borda-Fortuny, K. Tong, A. Al-Armaghany, and K. Wong, “A low- respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the
cost fluid switch for frequency-reconfigurable vivaldi antenna,” IEEE Department of Electrical Engineering and
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 3151–3154, 2017. Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool,
[72] K. K. Wong, A. Shojaeifard, K.-F. Tong, and Y. Zhang, “Performance U.K. She worked as a Lecturer with the Nanjing
limits of fluid antenna systems,” IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 24, no. 11, University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
pp. 2469–2472, Nov. 2020. Nanjing, China, from 2016 to 2020, where she
[73] K. K. Wong, A. Shojaeifard, K.-F. Tong, and Y. Zhang, “Fluid is currently an Associate Professor. He was
antenna systems,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 20, no. 3, a recipient of the Best Student Paper Award
pp. 1950–1962, Mar. 2021. at the 5th U.K./European China Workshop on Millimeter Waves and
[74] Z. Chen and H. Wong, “Wideband glass and liquid cylindrical dielec- Terahertz Technologies in 2012. Her research interests include liquid
tric resonator antenna for pattern reconfigurable design,” IEEE Trans. antennas, reconfigurable antennas, liquid material measurements, and
Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 5, pp. 2157–2164, May 2017.
antenna measurements.
[75] Z. Chen and H. Wong, “Liquid dielectric resonator antenna with cir-
cular polarization reconfigurability,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., CHAOYUN SONG (Member, IEEE) received the
vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 444–449, Jan. 2018. B.Eng., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
[76] M. Konca and P. A. Warr, “A frequency-reconfigurable antenna archi- engineering and electronics from the University of
tecture using dielectric fluids,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, Liverpool (UoL), Liverpool, U.K., in 2012, 2013,
no. 12, pp. 5280–5286, Dec. 2015. and 2017, respectively.
[77] S. Wang, L. Zhu, and W. Wu, “A novel frequency-reconfigurable He is currently an Assistant Professor with
patch antenna using low-loss transformer oil,” IEEE Trans. Antennas the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences,
Propag., vol. 65, no. 12, pp. 7316–7321, Dec. 2017. Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. He was
[78] C. Song, E. L. Bennett, J. Xiao, A. Alieldin, K.-M. Luk, and Y. Huang, a Postdoctoral Research Associate with UoL from
“Metasurfaced, broadband, and circularly polarized liquid antennas 2017 to 2020. He has published more than
using a simple structure,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 67, 80 papers (including 35 IEEE transactions) in
no. 7, pp. 4907–4913, Jul. 2019.
peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He has held two U.S.
[79] C. Song, E. L. Bennett, J. Xiao, Q. Hua, L. Xing, and Y. Huang,
patents and two U.K. patents. His current research interests include wire-
“Compact ultra-wideband monopole antennas using novel liquid
loading materials,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 49039–49047, 2019. less energy harvesting and wireless power transfer technologies, antennas
[80] C. Song, E. L. Bennett, J. Xiao, and Y. Huang, “Multi-mode and microwave circuits using novel materials, dielectric material and ionic
hybrid antennas using liquid dielectric resonator and magneto-electric liquids in RF applications, metamaterials and meta-surfaces in RF, energy
dipole,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., early access, Nov. 18, 2020, harvesting, and sensing technologies.
doi: 10.1109/TAP.2020.3037765. Dr. Song was a recipient of many international awards, such as the BAE
[81] M. Odit, P. Kapitanova, A. Andryieuski, P. Belov, and Systems Chairman’s Award in 2017 for the innovation of next generation
A. V. Lavrinenko, “Experimental demonstration of water based tunable global navigation satellite system antennas. In 2018, he received the Highly-
metasurface,” Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 109, no. 1, 2016, Art. no. 011901. Commended Award from the prestigious IET Innovation Awards over three
[82] Liquid Antenna Resources. Accessed: Mar. 30, 2021. [Online]. categories—“Energy and Power,” “Emerging Technologies,” and “Young
Available: www.liquidantennas.org Innovators.” He has been a Regular Reviewer of more than 25 interna-
tional journals, including Nature Communications, Applied Physics Letters,
Nano Energy and seven IEEE transactions, and a Guest Editor for Wireless
Communications and Mobile Computing.
YI HUANG (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.Sc. STEPHEN WANG (Senior Member, IEEE) received
degree in physics from Wuhan, China, in 1984, the M.Sc. degree from the University of Warwick
the M.Sc. (Eng.) degree in microwave engineer- in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree from the University
ing from Nanjing, China, in 1987, and the D.Phil. of Bristol in 2009. He served different roles
degree in communications from the University of as a Engineer, a Researcher, and a Team
Oxford, U.K., in 1994. Leader with China Telecom, Chinese Academy
He has been conducting research in the areas of Sciences, Toshiba Research Europe Ltd.,
of antennas, radio communications, applied elec- and Ocado Technology. He oversights digital
tromagnetics, radar, and EMC since 1987. More innovations strategy and steers Research and
recently, he is focused on mobile antennas, wire- Develpoment Programmes in wearables, 5G mas-
less energy harvesting, and power transfer. His sive MIMO, indoor positioning, industrial 4.0 IoT
experience includes three years spent with NRIET, China, as a Radar automation. He joined Huawei Technologies R&D (U.K.) Ltd., in 2017,
Engineer and various periods with the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford, and he is currently serves as the Director of Corporate Strategy and
and Essex, U.K., as a member of Research Staff. He worked as a Research Partnerships responsible of strategic technology planning, collaboration, and
Fellow with British Telecom Labs in 1994, and then joined the Department early investment activities in the Europe and interact with external consul-
of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, the University of Liverpool, U.K., tants to understand the ecosystem value and recommend technology strategy.
as a Faculty Member in 1995, where he is currently a Full Professor of He is also a member of Industrial Advisory Board with Bioengineering
Wireless Engineering with the Head of High Frequency Engineering Group Department, Imperial College London. He is an Inventor/Co-Inventor of
and the Deputy Head of Department. He has published over 400 refer- more 20 patents. His research interests include advanced wireless technolo-
eed papers in leading international journals and conference proceedings, gies, bioengineering, digital health and metamaterial. He is a regular author
and authored three books, including a bestseller Antennas: From Theory to and a reviewer of IEEE journals, a guest editor, a session chairs, and a
Practice (John Wiley, 2008, 2021). He has received many patents, research general co-chair. He is a U.K. Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of IET.
grants from research councils, government agencies, charity, EU and indus-
FATMA ELHOUNI received the B.Sc. degree in
try, and is a recipient of many awards (e.g., the BAE Systems Chairman’s
Award 2017, the IET Award, and the Best Paper Awards). He has served electrical and electronic engineering from the
on a number of national and international technical committees and been University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K., in 2018,
an editor, an associate editor, or a guest editor of five international journals. where she is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in
In addition, he has been a Keynote/Invited Speaker and an Organiser of liquid antennas. She is also working as a Graduate
many conferences and workshops (e.g., IEEE iWAT2010, LAPC2012, and Teaching Assistance with the Electrical and
EuCAP2018). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Wireless Engineering Electronics Engineering Department, University of
and Technology, an Associate Editor of IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS Liverpool. Her current research interest includes
liquid antenna designs, liquid antenna applications,
PROPAGATION LETTERS, U.K., an Ireland Rep to European Association of
Antenna and Propagation from 2016 to 2020, and a Fellow of the IET. and antenna arrays and measurements.

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