2012 International Conference on Electronics Computer Technology (ICECT 2012)

Comparison of Compact EBG Structures on the Mutual Coupling Reduction

of Antenna Arrays
D.Helena Margaret, B.Manimegalai
M.R.Subasree, S.Susithra, S.S.Keerthika, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai.
Velammal College of Engineering & Technology, Madurai.
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

AbstractMutual coupling is a critical issue in compact array cost filter design and construction[6]-[8], performance
design and reducing this is one of the main efforts in improvement in Microstrip antennas and mutual coupling
Microstrip antenna array design. Periodic structures can help reduction in antennas arrays[9]-[12].
in this situation by suppressing surface wave propagation in a Various 1D and 2D EBG structures have been studied
given frequency range. The purpose of this work is to show the extensively in the last decade. The uniplanar EBG (UC-EBG)
viability of using 2D EBG structures to this aim. This paper can suppress TM modes and 2D structures can suppress both
presents a double element Microstrip antenna array inserted TM and TE surface modes. When the EBG parameters are
with the EBG structures like conventional mushroom, properly designed, the pronounced surface waves are
Jerusalem cross slot and slot loaded EBGs around 5-6 GHz.
suppressed resulting in low mutual coupling.
The performances are compared for mutual coupling
reduction. Simulated results verify the improvement in
In this paper, various EBG structures like conventional
performance of the antenna array compared to the array mushroom, Jerusalem cross slot and slot loaded EBGs are
antenna without EBG. The slot loaded EBG is found to be inserted between a two element microstrip line fed monopole
good showing a 5.8dB mutual coupling reduction. antenna array to reduce the strong mutual coupling of
coupled microstrip antennas. The performance and the
Keyword-Electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures; mutual coupling are compared with and without the EBG
Microstrip antenna arrays; mutual coupling; surface wave. structures with the Method of Moment simulations.

I. INTRODUCTION II. EBG STRUCTURE CONFIGURATION

Microstrip antenna arrays have been popular for decades The conventional mushroom like EBG structure was
because they exhibit a low profile, small size, lightweight, proposed in [3, 4]. It consists of four parts: a ground plane, a
low manufacturing cost, high efficiency, and an easy method dielectric substrate, metallic patches and connecting vias as
of fabrication and installation. Furthermore, they are shown in figure 1(a). The operation mechanism of this EBG
generally economical to produce since they are readily structure can be explained by an LC filter array which is
adaptable to hybrid and monolithic integrated circuits shown in figure 1(b): the inductor L results from the current
fabrication techniques at radio frequency (RF) and flowing through the vias, and the capacitor C due to the gap
microwave frequencies [1]; however, significant degradation effect between the adjacent patches. For an EBG structure
of performance happens due to mutual coupling between the with patch width W, gap width g, substrate thickness h and
antenna elements. An antenna that is placed on a high- dielectric constant r, the values of the inductor L and
permittivity dielectric substrate may couple power into capacitor C are determined by the following formula:
substrate modes. As substrate modes do not contribute to the 1
primary radiation pattern, these modes are a loss mechanism 1 2
which reduces as high as 60% of the radiated power and ln .. 2
reduce the antenna efficiency.
1
Various techniques are explicitly designed to suppress 3
the surface wave. A straightforward way to reduce the
mutual coupling of monopole antennas on high-impedance .. 4

ground plane was developed in [2]. EBGs built in Microstrip
technology have gained much attention in the last years,
following their application in antenna technology introduced
in [3]-[5]. The Electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures
are periodically arranged metallic or dielectric elements that
exhibits one or more forbidden frequency bands where
surface waves are prevented to propagate. As EBG (a) (b)
structures exhibit forbidden bandgap by suppressing surface- Figure 1. Conventional mushroom EBG. (a) EBG Cells (b) Equivalent
wave propagation, the directions of research has been in lump-circuit elements of a typical EBG unit cells.
suppression of parallel plate noise in printed circuit boards,
integrated circuits and high speed circuits in general, low-

978-1-4673-1850-1/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE 412

 2012 International Conference on Electronics Computer Technology (ICECT 2012)

These formulas [1]-[4] are very simple and but their IV. MUTUAL COUPLING REDUCTION
results are not very accurate. They are used to get an initial The Microstrip antenna arrays on a thick and high
engineering estimation. To get the accurate band gap permittivity substrate suffers from strong mutual coupling
characteristics, the FDTD method can be used. Based on full because of the surface waves. The suppression of surface
wave analysis, the designed EBG structures follow the waves plays a useful role in improving the radiation
following expressions for the parameters: efficiency of antennas and also allows the control of
W= 0.12GHz, g= 0.02 GHz, h= 0.04 GHz, r=4.4 and the via unwanted side and back lobes in the pattern. This capability
radius is 0.005 GHz. of EBG structures can be evaluated experimentally using
The resulting dimensions of the EBG unit cells are surface wave measurements.
w=5.5mm, g=1mm and via radius 0.25mm. The EBGs are The setup model used to demonstrate the mutual
etched on a dielectric substrate FR4 epoxy (r=4.4) with a coupling reduction is shown in Figure 3. It consists of a two
thickness of 2 mm. element Microstrip monopole antenna array having a
resonant frequency of 5.5 GHz placed /2 apart, where is
the free-space wavelength.

Figure 2. EBG unit Cells (a) Conventional mushroom EBG (b)

Jerusalem cross slot EBG (c) Slot loaded EBG

The EBG structures (conventional mushroom, Jerusalem

cross slot and slot loaded EBGs) which are used in the
design for the reduction of mutual coupling are shown in Fig Figure 3. Monopole antenna array
2. The lattice in Fig.2(a) is the conventional mushroom
structure which consists of square metal patches connected The size of the antenna is WxL = 12mmx24 mm. The
to the ground plane by metal via pins in the center of the antenna is excited by a 50- microstrip line with WxL =
patch. The lattice in Fig.2 (b) is the Jerusalem cross slot 1.9mmx16 mm and the distance d between the antennas is
EBG structure, while the lattice in Fig. 2(c) consists of metal 30mm (0.5). The antenna is etched on FR4 epoxy
patches with slots on four sides. Gray parts in the figure substrate with a thickness of 2mm and dielectric constant of
represent metallic periodic structure which is etched on a 4.4.
dielectric substrate. Each element of this EBG lattice Since the EBGs have the capability to suppress surface
consists of a square metal patch with a slots cut in it, as waves, one column of EBG is inserted between the antennas
shown in Fig. 2. to reduce the mutual coupling, as shown in Fig 4.
The patch is connected to the solid lower ground plane
by a metal plated via. By cutting the metal patch, additional
capacitances are introduced along with the capacitance
formed by the gap between the metallic patches.
Furthermore, in these structures it is very easy to adjust the
capacitance amount by changing the slot dimensions. For
example, increasing the slots, more capacitance will be
introduced and vice versa. Thus variation of the slots results
in the tuning of the frequency bandgap position.
III. BAND GAP CHARACTERIZATION
Figure 4. Microstrip Monopole antennas separated by the slot loaded
A 3x3 EBG patch array has been simulated. The Method EBG structure for a low mutual coupling. One column of EBG
of Moment is applied to design these EBG structures patches is used.
(Agilents ADS Software). The array is built on a 1.6mm
thick substrate with the relative permittivity of 4.4. The Agilents Advanced Design System software based on
length of the square patch (W) is 5.5mm and the distance Method of Moments (MOM) is used to simulate the
between the adjacent patches is g=1mm. The period of the monopole microstrip antennas. Various EBG structures are
lattice is W+g =6.5mm. The method of suspended inserted between the antennas to reduce the mutual coupling.
Microstrip is applied to measure the bandgap
characterization of the EBG structures. A distinctive V. COMPARISON OF THE EBG STRUCTURES
stopband has been observed in the desired 5-6 GHz. Three different EBG cases, which are the modified
conventional mushroom EBG (mushroom EBG, Jerusalem

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 2012 International Conference on Electronics Computer Technology (ICECT 2012)

cross slot, Slot loaded EBG) are analyzed for mutual Mushroom EBG -42.08 dB 350MHz
coupling reduction. The EBGs are designed on the fr4 Jerusalem Cross slot
substrate with thickness h=1.6mm and relative permittivity -41.667 dB 575MHz
EBG
of 4.4. The radius of the via pins, where present, was kept Slot loaded EBG -43.33 dB 350MHz
constant at 0.25 mm. During the comparison, the antenna
size, substrate properties, and antenna distance in all the
VI. CONCLUSION
structures are kept the same as in the mushroom EBG case.
The performance of a double element microstrip antenna
array inserted with the EBG structures like conventional
mushroom, Jerusalem cross slot and slot loaded EBGs
around 5-6 GHz is examined for mutual coupling reduction.
Simulated results verify the improvement in performance of
the antenna array compared to the array antenna without
EBG. A significant improvement of compactness and
performance is observed.
VII. FUTURE WORK
Figure 5. Return loss of the array structure The prototype of the antenna structure is fabricated. It
consists of Antenna structures separated by a column of slot
Figure 5 shows the return loss of the antenna array with loaded EBG structures.
and without EBG. It is observed that the antennas with and
without EBG structure resonate around 5.6 GHz. The mutual
coupling results are shown in Figure 6. The results show a
very good reduction in coupling between the antennas due to
the EBG structures.
Without the EBG structures, the antennas show a strong
mutual coupling of 37.5 dB. When the EBG structures are
employed, the mutual coupling level changes according to
the type of EBG structure used. The Jerusalem EBG
structure reduces the coupling level by 3.817 dB and the
mushroom structure provides a coupling reduction of 4.58 Figure 7. The photograph of the fabricated Antenna structure separated
dB with respect to the antenna without EBG. The slot loaded by EBG structures
EBG is found to be better showing a 5.8dB mutual coupling
reduction compared to antenna without EBG. The slots in In future, the measured results will be compared with the
the structure produce increased capacitive effects in the simulated ones.
structure which accounts for this low mutual coupling
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