Mutual coupling effect on the performance of antenna arrays with corporate feed

Mutual coupling effects on the performance of linear antenna arrays with corporate feed are investigated in this paper. Formulas of the reflection coefficients for arrays fed through Y-branch power dividers are derived. For a two-element array, it is shown that the reflection coefficient at the input of the array is approximately the linear superposition of scattering coefficients S₁₁ and S₁₂ of the array. Therefore, mutual coupling can be utilized to achieve bandwidth enhancement with desired reflection coefficient and realized gain. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the analysis.