Decoupling of a Wideband Dual-Polarized Large-Scale Antenna Array With Dielectric Stubs

A technique of decoupling dielectric stubs (DDS) is proposed for mutual coupling reduction of wideband, dual-polarized, and large-scale antenna arrays in this paper, where a low dielectric constant DDS is mounting on a dual-polarized and wideband antenna array seamlessly. The decoupling mechanism of the proposed DDS is qualitatively explained. By properly optimizing the dielectric constant and dimensions of the dielectric stubs, the DDS can reduce the mutual couplings between array elements efficiently. The dielectric stubs are considered as perturbations to slightly localize the electromagnetic fields emitted from the antenna element to lower the space wave coupling. The advantages of the proposed decoupling technique are wideband, low cost, high efficiency, and suitable for large-scale antenna arrays. For demonstration, 4 x 4 dual-polarized and wideband antenna arrays with and without the DDS are simulated, measured, and compared. The simulated results show that the antenna array with the DDS can achieve all port-to-port isolations over 25 dB from 4.4 to 5.0 GHz for all the coupling paths, which are 7 dB higher than the counterparts without the DDS. Moreover, the total efficiencies of the antenna elements with the proposed DDS are also improved. The measured results agree well with the simulated, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method of DDS for decoupling of large-scale antenna arrays.

Automated summary

A decoupling technique using dielectric stubs (DDS) is proposed in this paper for reducing mutual coupling in large-scale antenna arrays. By optimizing the dielectric constant and dimensions of the dielectric stubs, efficient reduction of mutual couplings between array elements is achieved, with advantages of wideband, low cost, and high efficiency.