A Resonator Design for Mutual Coupling Reduction Between Microstrip Antennas in MIMO Applications at 28 GHz

A simple resonator structure is proposed to reduce the mutual coupling between rectangular microstrip patch antennas positioned close to each other for MIMO applications at 28 GHz center frequency. Here, the frequency of 28 GHz is chosen because it is one of middle bands for 5G communication in USA. Two microstrip patch antennas with gaps using a common dielectric substrate and a ground plane are employed as antennas and the patches are closely placed with an edge-to-edge distance of 0.6 mm (approximately λ/18). In order to reduce the mutual coupling between these radiating elements and increase the isolation, a resonator is positioned between them and its parameters are optimized. In the simulations, it is observed that the proposed resonator reduces the coupling by approximately 10 dB. By this result, it can be concluded that the proposed structure may be suitable for tightly packed MIMO systems.