Wideband RCS reduction and gain enhancement of MIMO antenna using polarization conversion metamaterial

Abstract

A wideband MIMO antenna is presented in this paper that reduces monostatic radar cross-section (RCS). The reduction in RCS is achieved by substituting the reference antenna's ground plane with a ground plane of metamaterial unit cells designed for polarization conversion. The reference antenna is constructed using a Rogers R03003 substrate with dimensions of 1.5mm thickness and 0.009 loss tangent. Based on the proposed design, the MIMO antenna can operate at a wide impedance width of 2.8 – 6GHz. The system performance was validated through practical measurements. The antenna peak gain is 5.6dBi with 89% efficiency. Furthermore, the analysis of diversity conducted on the proposed MIMO antenna reveals that the antenna has a low correlation coefficient of 0f <0.001, channel capacity loss of less than 0.35bits/sec/Hz, and total active reflection coefficient of <-10Db. The measured isolation of <-22dB is realized with a maximum RCS reduction of 48 dB. The proposed MIMO antenna’s radiation performance has been experimentally verified.  The proposed MIMO antenna can be applied in the 6^th generation radio access network as well as stealth technology.