A Novel Low-Cost H-Plane Decoupling Technique for Two Closely Placed Patch Antennas Using Electric and Magnetic Coupling Cancellation

This article presents a novel low-cost method for decoupling two closely placed H-plane arranged patch antennas. This new electric and magnetic coupling cancellation (EMCC) decoupling concept is simple yet highly effective, requiring no additional decoupling structures or complicated manufacturing processes. According to the proposed concept, the mutual coupling between two patches can be suppressed by controlling the weight of the electric (E) and magnetic (H) coupling between them. When the E-coupling and H-coupling are comparable, a deep null will arise on the mutual coupling curve, resulting in high isolation in the band of interest. To validate the approach, two prototypes for both two-element and four-element multi-input multi-output (MIMO) arrays are designed, fabricated, and measured. The experimental results agree well with the simulations, highlighting the advantages of this method, including low cost, high isolation, and simple antenna structures.