A magnetic permeability enhanced metamaterial is used to enhance the antenna array of a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) communication system. A rectangular patch antenna array is formed including a stack of a plurality of unit cells, where each unit cell includes an inductive loop of magnetic permeability enhanced metamaterials embedded in a host dielectric substrate. The use of such metamaterials permits the antenna arrays to be made smaller, and have less mutual coupling, when using a metamaterial substrate. The measured channel capacities of the antenna arrays are similar for the metamaterial and conventional substrates; however, the capacity improvement when using MIMO relative to single antenna communication systems is greater for antennas on metamaterial substrates.