Proceedings of the 48th European Microwave Conference
Mutual Coupling Reduction in UWB Modified
Maltese Shaped DRA Array for MIMO Applications
Kedar Trivedi#1, Dhaval Pujara#2
#
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India
1
13mecc23@nirmauni.ac.in, 2dhaval.pujara@nirmauni.ac.in
Abstract — In this paper, design of a tightly spaced two-
element modified Maltese shaped dielectric resonator antenna
(DRA) for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) applications is
proposed. Ultra-wide bandwidth (UWB) is achieved by use of
proposed Modified Maltese shaped DRA design. The antenna is
fed using trapezoidal shaped conformal strip feed. The single
element antenna was fabricated and measured bandwidth (BW)
of about 111% (3.6-12.6 GHz) was achieved. Based on the
encouraging UWB performance of single element antenna, two-
element antenna array with C-shaped Periodic Defected Ground
Structure (PDGS) is proposed. Mutual coupling less than -18 dB
over the entire band of interest is achieved using C-shaped
PGDS. Different antenna design parameters, its parametric
study, along with simulated and measured results are presented
in this paper.
Keywords — defected ground structure (DGS), dielectric
resonator antenna (DRA), multiple input multiple output
(MIMO), mutual coupling, ultrawideband (UWB).
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, MIMO antennas have gained interest of
researchers worldwide. Closely spaced multiple antennas in
MIMO system can ensure transmission of data at a higher rate,
and speed on multipath channels. High mutual coupling
between antenna array elements can hamper the diversity
performance of MIMO antennas. Thus, low mutual coupling is
a prime necessity for design of MIMO antennas [1].
Dielectric Resonator Antennas exhibit several advantages
over conventional microstrip patch antennas. DRAs provide
several benefits like high radiation efficiency, low conduction
losses, high gain, wide bandwidth, compatibility with variety
of feeding techniques, and temperature stability [2]. MIMO
antennas designed using patch antennas exhibit low radiation
efficiency [3]. On the contrary, DRAs are highly efficient and
the efficiency is not hampered when used in an array system.
Thus, DRAs prove to be a better candidate for MIMO
applications.
Variety of mutual coupling reduction techniques have been
proposed by researchers in DRA based MIMO antennas.
M. Farahani, et al. in [4] have achieved mutual coupling
reduction of about 20 dB by embedding metasurface wall
between DR elements. G. Zheng, et al. in [5] have used
artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surface as ground plane
for two-element cylindrical DRA structure and achieved about
20 dB reduction in mutual coupling. D. Guha, et al. have
utilized ring shaped defected ground structure between two
978-2-87487-051-4 © 2018 EuMA 1117
cylindrical DRAs to achieve mutual coupling reduction of
5 dB [6]. K. Trivedi, and D. Pujara in [7] have utilised C-
shaped PDGS to achieve mutual coupling reduction between
tree shaped DRAs over a wide band of 3.95-10.4 GHz.
L. Lui, et al. in [8] have introduced two rectangular slots in
the ground plane to achieve mutual coupling reduction in
UWB MIMO patch antenna. In this paper, the authors have
used C-shaped periodic defected ground structure to achieve
mutual coupling reduction in an UWB MIMO DRA array. In
[9], the authors of this paper have proposed single element
Modified Maltese shaped DRA design for UWB applications.
Measured impedance BW of about 111% covering frequency
range of 3.6 to 12.6 GHz was achieved. In this paper, the
authors have proposed the use of single element Modified
Maltese shaped DRA design of [9] for a tightly spaced 2X2
MIMO system. C-shaped PDGS is introduced to achieve
mutual coupling below -18 dB over the entire band of interest.
Two-element DRA array geometry is discussed in Section
II. Discussion on simulated and measured results is covered in
Section III. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in Section IV.
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY AND DESIGN
Fig. 1 shows the design of proposed two-element Modified
Maltese shaped DRA with C-shaped PDGS. Rogers RO 3010
having permittivity of εr1 = 10.2 is used as DR material. The
DR elements are placed on Rogers RT 5880 (εr2 = 2.2)
substrate having periodic C-shaped defect in the ground plane.
Conformal strip feeding of trapezoidal shape is used to feed
DR elements for better impedance matching. Gradual flaring
of conformal feed helps in controlling the excitation of higher
order modes. The conformal feed efficiently couples energy
from feed to the DRA. A parametric analysis to optimize the
design parameters is carried out using Ansoft HFSS 2014.
After rigorous analysis, the optimized antenna dimensions are
as follows: L = W = 60 mm, d = 7 mm, D1 = 22 mm, D2 = 4
mm, l1 = 10 mm, l2 = 6 mm, l3 = 2.4 mm, h1 = 7.5 mm, h2 = 7
mm, l = 46 mm, s = 4 mm, θ = 75°, and r = 7 mm. The gap
between two DR elements is kept around 0.18λ0, where λ0 is
the wavelength of lowest operating frequency. Antenna
miniaturization is the need of today’s era. So, it is extremely
important to closely space antenna elements. On the other
hand, mutual coupling is significant when the inter element
spacing is less than λ0/4. So, periodic C-shaped defect is
introduced in the ground plane to reduce coupling between
elements spaced 0.18λ0 apart.
25–27 Sept 2018, Madrid, Spain
 insertion of 4 cylindrical slots. About 88.76% BW is achieved
by introduction of fifth cylindrical slot in the centre of
Antenna-3 design. Finally, simulated UWB of about 109% is
achieved by introducing two orthogonal slits in Antenna-4
h2 design. The position of cylindrical slots and orthogonal slits is
fixed on the basis of the study of internal E-field distribution.
l To improve the BW of Antenna-2 near 8 GHz frequency band,
E-field distribution at 8 GHz is studied and it has been found
that maximum E-field distribution is in the center of each leg of
Maltese shaped DRA. So, four cylindrical slots are introduced
to improve BW near 8 GHz band. Similarly, maximum internal
L E-field distribution in Antenna-3 at 9 GHz is found in the
W center of DRA. So, fifth cylindrical slot is introduced in the
center. In the similar way, the length and position of two
orthogonal slits have been fixed. The impedance bandwidths of
(a) each antenna shown in Fig. 2, are shown graphically in Fig. 3.
On comparing BW of proposed antenna and Antenna-1, it can
be concluded that BW of proposed DRA is about 33% more
than that of Antenna-1. The distance of the cylindrical slots
greatly affect the BW of DRA. Effect of changing the distance
of slot from the center is shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that
bandwidth improves from 86.23% to 109% as the distance is
increased from 5 to 7 mm. Fig. 5 shows the effect of changing
conformal feed height of proposed single element DRA. From
(b) Fig. 5, it is clear that as the height of feed is increased from 3.5
to 7.5 mm, impedance matching improves and in turn good
return-loss performance is achieved.

(c)
Fig. 2. Transition from Antenna-1 to single element proposed DRA.
Fig. 1. Geometry of proposed two-element modified maltese shaped DRA
design: (a) isometric view, (b) top, front and side view of DR element, and (c)
back view.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig. 2 shows the transition from a cylindrical DRA design
placed on a rectangular base (Antenna-1) to final proposed
single element DRA design. Iterative improvement in
simulated impedance bandwidth is achieved by design changes
from Antenna-1 to proposed single element DRA design. Four
air gaps are introduced in Antenna-1 design by use of Maltese
shaped geometry (Antenna-2). The air gaps introduced help in
reducing the effective permittivity of DRA and since BW of
DRA is inversely proportional to the square root of the
permittivity of DRA [2], bandwidth improvement from 75.1%
to 80.61% is achieved. To further improve the bandwidth, four
cylindrical slots are introduced in Antenna-2 to get Antenna-3
design. About 2% improvement in bandwidth is achieved
Fig. 3. Simulated impedance BWs of Antenna-1, 2, 3, 4 and proposed antenna.

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 Fig. 4. Effect of changing ‘d’ on the BW of single element proposed DRA.
Fig. 5. Effect of changing conformal feed height on return-loss performance of
single element proposed DRA.
Fig. 6 shows the photographs of fabricated single element
DRA from different angles. The antenna is fabricated by
joining multiple thin strips of Rogers RO 3010 material using
adhesive to achieve desired height of DR. A slight shift in the
resonating frequency is observed due to the use of adhesive
and the same is shown in Fig. 7 by comparing return-loss
performance of simulated and measured results. About 111%
measured bandwidth is achieved covering frequency range of
3.6 to 12.6 GHz. Air gaps formed due to inaccurate machining
and stacking of multiple DRs hampers the return-loss
performance of antennas.
Fig. 6. Photographs of single element fabricated antenna.
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Fig. 7. Simulated and measured return-loss performance of proposed single
element DRA.
The comparison of return-loss performances of two-
element DRA array with and without C-shaped PDGS by
keeping one of the DR elements passive is shown in Fig. 8.
From the graph of Fig. 8, it is clear that the bandwidth of DRA
array is not much affected by introduction of C-shaped PDGS.
However, on comparison of Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 results, it can be
said that a slight reduction in impedance bandwidth is
observed. The proposed two-element DRA array covers
frequency range from 3.7 to 12.1 GHz. About 106% simulated
impedance bandwidth is achieved in two-element DRA array
and it is 5% less than the one obtained in single element DRA
design. The comparison of mutual coupling performance of
two-element DRA array with and without PDGS is shown in
Fig. 9. Mutual coupling can take place through radiation and
propagating surface waves. The radiation coupling is
controlled by positioning the DRs as shown in Fig. 1. From
Fig. 9, it is clear that mutual coupling is significant in 4-5.2
GHz band. This coupling is primarily due to presence of
propagating surface waves. To reduce the surface wave
coupling, C-shaped PDGS is introduced. The size and position
of C-shaped PDGS is fixed in a way that it creates a gap
discontinuity in 4-5.2 GHz band. Mutual coupling less than
-18 dB is achieved. The mutual coupling performance is 3 dB
better than the permissible limit of -15 dB, over the entire
frequency band of interest. The study of surface current
distribution in the ground plane of two-element DRA array
with and without PDGS at 4.5 GHz gives an indepth idea of
the significance of C-shaped defect. Fig. 10 shows the
comparison of surface current distribution at 4.5 GHz in DRA
array with and without PDGS by keeping one of the DR
elements passive. It is clear that introduction of C-shaped
PDGS, blocks the coupling of energy from active antenna
element to the feed of passive element. The normalized E- and
H-plane radiation patterns of DRA array with and without
PDGS while keeping one element passive at 8.6, and 10.8
GHz are shown in Fig. 11. About 97% radiation efficiency and
average gain of about 6 dBi over the entire band of interest has
been achieved while keeping one of the DR elements passive.

Fig. 8. Return-loss performance of MIMO DRA array with and without PDGS.
Fig. 9. S12/S21 parameters of MIMO DRA array with and without PDGS.
Fig. 10. Surface current distribution on ground plane of MIMO DRA array
with PDGS (left) and without PDGS (right).
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Fig. 11. Simulated co- and cross-polarized radiation patterns of MIMO DRA
array with and without PDGS at (a) 8.6 GHz, and (b) 10.8 GHz.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Design of two-element modified maltese shaped DRA
array design with C-shaped PDGS is proposed in this paper.
UWB is achieved by introduction of air gaps in single element
DRA design. About 111% measured impedance BW in single
element DRA design has been achieved. Furthermore, the
same design is used in two-element DRA array configuration
and reduction in mutual coupling is achieved by introduction
of C-shaped PDGS. Mutual coupling less than -18 dB over the
entire band of interest is achieved. Based on the performance
parameters, the proposed antenna can be good candidate for
UWB MIMO applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Pujya Morari Bapu for his
blessings and being a source of inspiration.
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