Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) array antenna integrated with the double negative metamaterial superstrate is presented. The triangular metamaterial unit cell is designed by combining two triangular elements positioned in complementary on the same plane at different sizes. Such design with more gaps is used to excite rooms for more capacitance effects to shift the resonance frequency thus enlarging the bandwidth of the MIMO antenna. The unit cell is arranged in 7 × 7 periodic array created a superstrate metamaterial plane where the Cstray exists in parallel between the two consecutive cells. It is found that the existence of Cstray and gaps for each unit cells significantly influenced the bandwidth of the MIMO antenna. The higher value of the capacitance will lead to the negativity of permittivity. The superstrate plane is then located on top of the 4 × 2 MIMO with a gap of 5 mm. The integration resulted in improving the bandwidth to 12.45% (5.65-6.4GHz) compared to only 3.49% bandwidth (5.91-6.12GHz) of the MIMO antenna itself. Moreover, the negative permeability characteristic is created by a strong magnetic field between the complementary unit cells to have 14.05-dBi peak gain. Besides that, the proposed antenna managed to minimize the mutual coupling and improve the mean effective gain, envelope correlation coefficient, and multiplexing efficiency.
Funding(s)
Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and Technology Centre
