Abstract
Emerging wireless applications, such as spectrum sharing, demand reconfigurable front ends or electromagnetic surfaces with wide tunability, exceeding the limitations of conventional RF MEMS. A soft reconfigurable capacitor utilizing a pneumatic soft-robotics mechanism for deformation-driven tuning is presented. The two-layer design uses Ecoflex 00-30 elastomer to smoothly adjust two movable top plates from 0° (flat) to 90°. Full-wave simulations demonstrate this angular modulation yields a wide capacitance tuning ratio of approximately5.7: 1 , changing capacitance from 388.3 pF at 0° to 68.3 pF at 90°. A compact prototype, controlled by an Arduino microcontroller and miniature pumps, serves as a proof of concept for reconfigurable RF or antenna systems.