Mutual Coupling Reduction Between Closely-Placed Patches Based on Polarization Conversion and Weak-Field Generation

This work presents an efficient solution for E-plane mutual coupling (MC) reduction between dual closely-placed patches by using polarization conversion followed by weak field construction near the feeding point. The polarization is realized for MC reduction by loading a rectangular convertor etched with a U-shaped slot, and the weak-field distribution is achieved for cross-polarization (XP) suppression by loading shorting pins at two non-radiative edges. Compared to a reference array with the same elements and inter-element distance, the presented decoupled array has a peak MC reduction of 6.64 dB at 5.8 GHz. Besides, the decoupled array maintains the low XP radiation with a peak XP level of −17.3 dB. The proposed design can be used for MIMO systems.