Reduction of Mutual Coupling Between Closely Packed Patch Antennas Using Waveguided Metamaterials

The reduction of mutual coupling between closely spaced antenna elements is attractive in the electromagnetic and antenna community. An efficient approach to suppress the mutual coupling between microstrip patch antennas is proposed using waveguided metamaterials. The waveguided metamaterials are designed and realized by crossed-meander-line slits, which exhibit magnetic resonances and further the band-gap property. By inserting the waveguided metamaterials between two H-plane coupled rectangular patch antennas with the edge-to-edge distance less than λ₀/8, about 6 dB reduction of mutual coupling throughout the -10-dB bandwidth has been achieved, which is verified by measurement results.