Design of metasurface absorber for low RCS and high isolation MIMO antenna for radio location & navigation

In this article, a novel metasurface absorber is designed for RCS reduction as well as high isolation in a 4-elements MIMO antenna. A unit cell of metasurface absorber is amalgamated by concentric circular and elliptical-shaped rings with four 300 ohms lumped resistances. Absorbance at the intended frequency band (i.e. 8.75 GHz-9.00 GHz) of metasurface absorber is more than 90.0% and its reflectivity is tending to zero. Therefore, the isolation between antennas due to this absorbance is improved by 12 dB, and the total isolation of the antenna is achieved less than 23 dB. Similarly, the Radar cross-section (RCS) of the antenna is also significantly reduced by 10dBm(2). This MIMO antenna with an absorbing structure is fabricated on a richly existing FR4 substrate with dimensions of 55 x 40 x 1 mm(3). The performance of the designed MIMO antenna is also judged by diversity parameters similar to Envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), Directive gain (DG), Mean effective gain (MEG), Channel capacity loss (CCL), Total Active Reflection Coefficient (TARC), and channel capacity, etc. for the proposed frequency band. The simulated and measured ECC of the proposed MIMO is less than 0.073 which exhibits that this antenna is suitable for military application in radiolocation and navigation.