Mutual Coupling Reduction in Airborne Co-Sited Blade Antennas Through Size-Constrained Vertical Soft Surfaces

In this letter, the mutual coupling reduction in airborne co-sited blade antennas is addressed. To suppress the interference between nearby radiators over a wideband, an innovative coplanar printed isolating device is designed by exploiting an extension of the soft surface concept. As a proof of the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a system working in the aircraft L-band is designed that yields a high isolation (with mutual scattering coefficient S-12 <= -30.8 dB) over a fractional bandwidth of 23.4% without significantly impacting the radiation performance.

Automated summary

This paper addresses the issue of mutual coupling reduction in airborne co-sited blade antennas, and proposes an innovative coplanar printed isolating device to suppress interference between nearby radiators. Through the design of a system working in the aircraft L-band, it is proven that the proposed approach can achieve high isolation over a wide fractional bandwidth without significantly impacting radiation performance.