Antennas are transducers that convert electromagnetic waves from guided to radiated form, and vice-versa; their are of paramount importance in wireless communications systems, remote sensing devices, and even in medical applications that make use of radiowaves.
The research activities in this field have been focused on the design of innovative antennas for communication systems working at UHF band and above, and in particular on reconfigurable antennas and planar UWB antennas.
Reconfigurable antennas have been recently suggested as an ideal solution for improving the level of diversity of multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems without increasing the number of antennas employed at the receiver and at the transmitter. The research group has developed highly reconfigurable antennas for WiFi and RFId applications, using both traditional technologies (patch antennas) and innovative solutions like metamaterials (leaky-wave antennas).
Designing antennas for Ultra-wideband (UWB) systems is a challenging and fascinating task; among the different technologies that can be utilized, the research group has focused on wide slot antennas fed by a co-planar waveguide (CPW), that are particularly interesting when size is of concern.
In addition to papers published on specialized journals and to contributions presented at conferences, several patents have been issued to protect the IP developed by the research group. A large fraction of these patents are now being exploited by antenna manufacturers.
People from this research group has also contributed to the establishment of Adant company (www.adant.com) in 2010; Adant incorporates the technologies developed at Politecnico di Milano and at Drexel University (Philadelphia, US), and its mission is to provide smart reconfigurable antenna solutions that leading WiFi wireless manufactures and consumer electronic industry leaders can easily integrate in mobile handsets, notebooks and access points in order to deliver unprecedented connectivity experience to final consumer.

Prototype of a WiFi access point using the leaky-wave reconfigurable antenna (RLWA)

Radiation diagram at 10 GHz of a UWB antenna