COUPLING SUPPRESSION IN DENSELY PACKED MICROSTRIP ARRAYS USING METAMATERIAL STRUCTURE

This article reports on an efficient technique of using modified complementary split ring resonator metamaterial structures for enhancing isolation between the elements of densely packed microstrip phased array. A two element E-coupled microstrip phased array operating at 3.7 GHz with edge-to-edge element separation of 0.125 lambda(o) is realized. The proposed decoupling technique is analyzed by placing the metastructure in between the antennas on the patch layer as well as by etching it in the ground plane. Isolation enhancement of 14.6 dB is achieved when the metastructure is introduced on both top and bottom sides of the antenna array. The measured mutual coupling of -37.1 dB and return loss of -20.7 dB is demonstrated. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.