On the Use of a Microstrip Meander Line to Reduce Mutual Coupling between a Patch Antenna and a Transmission Line on Printed Circuit Boards

Abstract

A microstrip meander line (MML) design is proposed in this paper to reduce the unwanted mutual coupling between a closely placed patch antenna and a transmission line on a printed circuit board at 5.3 GHz. Through full wave modeling, simulation, optimization, and prototype fabrication, the proposed design resulted in achieving an improved reduction of the mutual coupling of 10 dB at 5.3 GHz. Additionally, the effect on mutual coupling has been investigated for different trace lengths of MML.