Microstrip antennas integrated with electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structures: a low mutual coupling design for array applications

Utilization of electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structures is becoming attractive in the electromagnetic and antenna community. In this paper, a mushroom-like EBG structure is analyzed using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Its band-gap feature of surface-wave suppression is demonstrated by exhibiting the near field distributions of the electromagnetic waves. The mutual coupling of microstrip antennas is parametrically investigated, including both the E and H coupling directions, different substrate thickness, and various dielectric constants. It is observed that the E-plane coupled microstrip antenna array on a thick and high permittivity substrate has a strong mutual coupling due to the…