Experimental verification of the reduction of coupling between dipole antennas by using a woodpile substrate

In this paper, the mutual coupling between dipole antennas placed on top of a woodpile structure is experimentally investigated. The coupling between dipoles backed by a woodpile substrate is compared with that obtained when the dipole antennas are placed on a dielectric substrate and when they radiate into free space. On average, between 2 and 7 dB reduction of the mutual coupling is achieved with respect to the dielectric substrate case when the woodpile substrate is used. The free space coupling is also reduced in the H-plane configuration case. However, the E-plane coupling slightly increases due to modification of the radiation pattern. Imaging array applications could potentially benefit from the use of EBG substrates due to the improved isolation between pixels. Index Terms--Electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) technology, imaging array, mutual coupling, planar antennas.