Novel planar electromagnetic bandgap for mutual coupling reduction between patch antennas

In this paper, a novel electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure has been introduced. Initially, the EBG is theoretically analysed using a lumped element model. Thereafter the dispersion diagram of the EBG is extracted by simulating the EBG unit cell in eigenmode Solver of CST Microwave Studio. The simulated bandgap values shown by the dispersion diagram are then experimentally validated by using a test structure which consists of a 4x5 matrix of the novel EBG unit cells. The simulated and measured insertion loss of this test structure depict surface wave suppression within the estimated frequency bandgaps. Finally, three rows of novel EBG unit cells are integrated between two patch antennas. The mutual coupling reduction between the patch antennas with and without the novel EBG is compared to show its surface wave suppression effect.