Design and analysis of a quad‐band substrate‐integrated‐waveguide cavity backed slot antenna for 5G applications

A planar and compact substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity backed antenna and a 2 × 2 multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) antenna are presented in this study. The proposed antenna is fed by a grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) to SIW type transition and planned to be used for millimeter‐wave (mm‐wave) fifth generation (5G) wireless communications that operates at 28, 38, 45, and 60 GHz frequency bands. Moreover, the measured impedance bandwidth (|S₁₁| ≤ ? 10 dB ) of the antenna covers 27.55 to 29.36, 37.41 to 38.5, 44.14 to 46.19, and 57.57 to 62.32 GHz bands and confirms the quad‐band characteristic. Omni‐directional radiation characteristics are observed in the far‐field radiation pattern measurements of the antenna over the entire operating frequency. The reported antenna is compact in size (9.7 × 13.3 × 0.6 mm³) and the gain values at each resonance frequency are measured as 3.26, 3.28, 3.34, and 4.51 dBi, respectively. Furthermore, the MIMO antenna performance is evaluated in terms of isolation, envelope correlation coefficient and diversity gain.     

A low‐profile quad‐port UWB MIMO antenna using defected ground structure with dual notch‐band behavior

A compact (45 × 45 × 1.6 mm³) ultrawide‐band (UWB), multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) design using microstrip line feeding is presented. The proposed design comprises four elliptical monopoles placed orthogonally on a cost‐effective FR‐4 substrate. In order to improve the impedance bandwidth and lessen the return loss of the MIMO antenna, defects in ground plane are created by etching symmetrical square slots and half‐rings. Moreover, a different method (of unsymmetrical H‐shaped slot with C‐shaped slot) was proposed into the patch to introduce dual‐band rejection performance from UWB at center frequency 5.5 GHz (covering lower WLAN as well as upper WLAN) and 7.5 GHz (X band). In addition, a stub is introduced at the edge of each defected ground structure to obtain isolation >–22 dB covering entire performing band from 2 to 16.8 GHz (where, S₁₁ < –10 dB). The proposed design has miniaturized size, very low envelop correlation coefficient less than 0.1, stable gain (2‐4 dBi except for notch bands). Furthermore, various MIMO performance parameters are within their specifications, such as diversity gain (= 10 dB), total active reflection coefficient (<–5 dB, and channel capacity loss (<0.35 bits/s/Hz). The presented design is optimized using the HFSS software, and fabricated design is tested using vector network analyzer. The experimental results are in good agreement with the simulation results.     

Gain enhancement and mutual coupling reduction of multiple‐intput multiple‐output antenna for millimeter‐wave applications using two types of novel metamaterial structures

A method to significantly increase the gain and reduce the mutual coupling of microstrip multiple‐intput multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna based on metamaterial concept is presented. The μ‐negative and ε‐negative features of the proposed modified peace‐logo planar metamaterial (MPLPM) and two‐sided MPLPM (TSMPLPM) structures are calculated. The antenna structure consists of eight MPLPM slabs and two TSMPLPM, which are embedded in azimuth plane of a MIMO antenna vertically. The dimensions of MIMO antenna are 28 × 16 × 6.3 mm³ at 40 GHz. As a result, a compact MIMO antenna is simulated in comparison with primary microstrip structures. The corresponding return‐loss of the antenna is better than 10 dB over 34.5 to 45.5 GHz for Ka‐band applications. Good consent between the measured and simulated result is tacked. The maximum simulated gain of the structure is 15.5 dB at 40 GHz, creating a maximum gain improvement of 11.5 dB in comparison with a MIMO antenna without any metamaterial combinations. The value of the insertion‐loss (isolation) is 33 dB, which has improved by more than 25 dB compared to the conventional sample.     

A miniaturized multi‐wideband Quasi‐Yagi MIMO antenna system

A multi‐band directional multiple‐input–multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna system is presented based on a rectangular loop excited Quasi‐Yagi configuration. A 64% reduction in size is obtained using a rectangular meandered element as well as a small ground plane. The proposed two‐element MIMO antenna system covers the Telemetry L‐band and several LTE/WLAN bands. It has a wide measured bandwidth of 689 MHz (1.897–2.586 GHz) in the desired band centered at 2 GHz, and a measured bandwidth of more than 168 MHz across rest of the bands. The MIMO antenna system has a total size of 45 × 120 × 0.76 mm³, with a single element size of 55 × 60 × 0.76 mm³. The non‐desired back‐lobe radiation which is obtained using a small ground plane, is significantly reduced by using a novel defected ground structure (DGS) as compared with the complex techniques present in literature. The proposed DGS provides a high measured front‐to‐back ratio of 14 dB at 2 GHz and 11 dB in other bands. A maximum measured realized gain of 5.8 dBi is obtained in the desired band using a single parasitic director element. The proposed MIMO antenna system has a minimum measured radiation efficiency of 70%, isolation of 12 dB, and envelope correlation coefficient of 0.098 within all bands which ensures very good MIMO performance.     

Design and performance investigation of a low profile MIMO/Diversity antenna for WLAN/WiMAX/HIPERLAN applications with high isolation

A low profile triband compact multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna operating at WLAN, WiMAX, and HIPERLAN bands is presented. The proposed MIMO antenna consists of two planar inverted‐F antenna elements located at the top two corners of printed circuit board (PCB). Dimensions of each antenna elements are reduced substantially by employing a meandered line and folded patch structure so that it occupies a small volume of 9 × 8.8 × 5.4 mm³. The proposed antenna consists of three arms namely, Main arm, Side arm 1, and Side arm 2. Each individual arm resonates corresponding to the λ/4 electrical length. Characterization of the antenna is carried out in the mobile environment as well as in user proximity. In the presence of mobile environment which includes liquid crystal display (LCD), Battery, RF components, and plastic housing, the isolation as well as reflection coefficient parameters deteriorated. To avoid the aggravation of S‐parameters, two nonradiating folded shorting strips are connected between each antenna element and ground plane of PCB. This folded shorting strip not only improves the isolation between ports but also prevent the deterioration of reflection coefficient parameter. The total efficiency, envelope correlation coefficient, and multiplexing efficiency are studied in the user proximity. The optimized structure is fabricated and measured. The measured S‐parameters cover WLAN (2.46–2.6 GHz), WiMAX (3.37–3.75 GHz), and HIPERLAN (5.2–5.87 GHz) based on ?10 dB reflection coefficient and ?24 dB isolation is achieved between antenna ports. Good agreement is obtained between the simulated and measured results. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:510–521, 2015.     

Compact dual wide‐band four/eight elements MIMO antenna for WLAN applications

A compact four and eight elements multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna designed for WLAN applications is presented in this article. The antenna operates in IEEE 802.11b/g WLAN (2.4 GHz), IEEE 802.11 ac/n WLAN (5.2 and 5.8 GHz) and WiMAX (5.8 GHz) bands. The resonated mode of the antenna is achieved by two unequal Reverse‐L shaped, line‐shaped slots on top and parasitic element on the ground layer. The single antenna provides wide bandwidth of about 29% (2.3‐3.1 GHz) in lower and 22% (4.9‐6.1 GHz) in the upper band. The compactness of the single element antenna is found about 95% with respect to the patch and 61% in overall dimension. Thereafter an investigation is carried out to design two, four, and eight elements MIMO antennas. All of the multi‐element structures provide compact configuration and cover entire WLAN frequency ranges (2.4‐2.48 and 5.15‐5.85 GHz). The dimension of the proposed eight element MIMO antenna is 102 × 52 × 1.6 mm³. It covers the frequency (measured) from 2.4 to 3.1 GHz and 5 to 6.1 GHz. The diversity performance of the proposed MIMO antenna is also assessed in terms of the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain (DG), and total active reflection co‐efficient (TARC). The ECC is found <0.5 whereas the DG >9.0 is obtained for the desired bands.     

Symmetrical double‐comb multi‐slotted large bandwidth antenna for intelligent transportation systems

This article presents a novel compact circularly polarized multi‐slotted large bandwidth antenna for intelligent transportation system (ITS). The proposed antenna has a rectangular shaped multi‐slotted patch on upper side and a partial ground plane with multiple slots on lower side. The designed prototype antenna works from 22 to 29 GHz and is therefore applicable for ITS and weather forecasting applications. The design structure is distinct in terms of a low profile as well as simple structure, which is advantageous in mass production. Moreover, the multiple slots design antenna provides enhanced bandwidth. The axial ratio shows that the proposed antenna's behavior is circularly polarized with a compact size of 30 × 20 mm². The measured reflection coefficient, gain, and the radiation pattern are consistent with simulated results. The proposed antenna has a reflection coefficient below ?20 dB and maximum gain of ~5 dBi at 24 GHz (ITS band).     

Small‐size four‐element antenna system for 2 × 2 LTE LB and 4 × 4 LTE M/HB MIMO operations in 5G mobile terminals

A small‐size four‐element antenna system for 2 × 2 LTE low band (LB, 698‐960 MHz) and 4 × 4 LTE middle/high band (M/HB, 1710‐2690 MHz) multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) operations in 5G (fifth‐generation) mobile terminals is presented. The proposed antenna system is formed by two identical tunable loop antennas and two identical coupled‐fed IFA (Inverted‐F Antenna) antennas. By loading a RF switch with four output states as tunable component, the proposed loop antenna can not only operate in the M/HB, but also achieve improved bandwidth coverage in the LB. Each coupled‐fed IFA element operating in the M/HB with compact volume. The four antennas are placed on the both short side‐edge of the mobile terminal with small ground clearance of 4.2 mm. The simulated S‐parameters show that the proposed MIMO system can cover 698 to 960 MHz and 1710 to 2690 MHz with reflection coefficients less than ?6 dB and isolations are all more than 12 dB. Good MIMO performances such as radiation efficiencies, envelope correlation coefficient (less than 0.4 within the entire operation bands) and channel capacity are also obtained. The effects of user's hand(s) on performances for the proposed antenna system are also discussed. This four‐element antenna system prototype is fabricated and measured.     

Planar UWB antenna with modified slotted ground plane

A compact coplanar waveguide‐fed (CPW) monopole antenna for ultra‐wideband wireless communication is presented. The proposed antenna comprises of a CPW‐fed beveled rectangular patch with a modified slotted ground. The overall size of the antenna is 30 mm × 27 mm × 1.6 mm. The lower edge of the band is attained by properly decoupling the resonant frequencies due to the extended ground plane and the beveled rectangular patch of the antenna. The upper edge of the radiating band is enhanced by beveling the ground plane corners near the feed point. Experimental results show that the designed antenna operates in the 2.7–12 GHz band, for S₁₁ ≤ ?10 dB with a gain of 2.7–5 dBi. Both the frequency domain and time domain characteristics of the antenna are investigated using antenna transfer function. It is observed that the antenna exhibits identical radiation patterns and reasonable transient characteristics over the entire operating band. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2012.     

A K/Ka‐band dielectric and metallic 3D printed aperture shared multibeam parabolic reflector antenna for satellite communication

A K/Ka‐band (22‐33 GHz) high‐gain aperture shared multibeam parabolic reflector antenna is proposed. It performs a two‐dimensional beam scanning from a shared single parabolic reflector by introducing off‐focal feeds. The feed array is placed on and off the focal of the parabolic reflector. Traditionally, the feed blockage has a great impact on the performance of the antenna, which reduces the gain and increases the sidelobe level. The purpose of this paper is to suppress the negative effects of feed blockage by using hybrid material processing method. Both dielectric and metallic 3D printing technologies are used for antenna fabrication. The parabolic reflector antenna is printed by selective laser melting using aluminum alloy. The feed array and the supporting structures are printed by stereolithography apparatus in resin to control the blockage. The method helps to suppress the sidelobe level from ?10 to ?15 dB and to enhance gain by up to 2.3 dBi. The reflection coefficient is less than ?10 dB, while the coupling coefficient between the ports is less than ?20 dB over the entire designed band. At 31.5 GHz, the simulated maximum gain of the antenna are 30.7, 29.1, and 29.7 dBi, when different port separately excites. Multiple beams at ±15° and 0° are observed on both E‐ and H‐planes. Besides, it also verifies the possibility to use dielectric and metallic 3D printing technologies in hybrid for microwave device fabrication.     

A compact UWB‐MIMO with dual grounded CRR for isolation improvement

In this article, a compact half‐hexagonal ultra‐wide band multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna is presented. The key feature of the antenna is its novel isolation improvement technique which includes grounded stub along with dual grounded circular ring resonator. The antenna contains two counter facing half‐hexagonal monopoles having hybrid isolation circuit. The antenna has a compact size of 20 × 34 mm², with operating frequency band of 3‐11 GHz where port isolation is better than 20 dB in most of the band. The MIMO performance is ensured by calculating envelop correlation coefficient and mean effective gain ratio for isotropic, indoor, and outdoor environment. The performance of the antenna with multilayer printed circuit board having large dual ground plane and device housing is also studied. Results show that the proposed MIMO antenna is a good candidate for handheld devices for wireless personal‐area networks application.     

Coplanar waveguide‐fed electrically small dual‐polarized short‐ended zeroth‐order resonating antenna using Ω‐shaped capacitor and single‐split ring resonator for GPS/WiMAX/WLAN/C‐band applications

This work explains the design and analysis of a triple‐band electrically small (ka = 0.56 < 1) zeroth‐order resonating (ZOR) antenna with wideband circular polarization (CP) characteristics. The antenna compactness is obtained due to ZOR frequency of composite right/left‐handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL) and wideband CP radiation are achieved due to the introduction of single‐split ring resonator and asymmetric coplanar waveguide fed ground plane. The proposed antenna obtains an overall electrical size including the ground plane of 0.124 λ₀ × 0.131 λ₀ × 0.005 λ₀ at 1.58 GHz and physical dimension of 23.7 × 25 × 1 mm³ are achieved. The antenna provides a size reduction of 44.95% compared to a conventional monopole antenna. The novelty behind the ohm‐shaped capacitor is the generation of extra miniaturization with better antenna compactness. The antenna provides dual‐polarized radiation pattern with linear polarization radiation at 1.58 and 3.54 GHz, wideband CP radiation at 5.8 GHz. The antenna measured results shows good impedance bandwidth of 5%, 6.21%, and 57.5% for the three bands centered at 1.58, 3.54, and 5.8 GHz with a wider axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 25.47% is obtained in the third band. The antenna provides a higher level of compactness, wider ARBW, good radiation efficiency, and wider S₁₁ bandwidth. Hence, the proposed antenna is suitable for use in GPS L1 band (1.565‐1.585 GHz), WiMAX 3.5 GHz (3.4‐3.8 GHz) GHz, WLAN 5.2/5.8 GHz (5.15‐5.825 GHz), and C‐band (4‐8 GHz) wireless application systems.     

Circular polarized dual‐band antenna for WLAN/Wi‐MAX application

A novel square ring printed antenna has been suggested for dual‐band circular polarization (CP). The geometry contains a square patch and a square ring structure for dual‐band operation. Circular polarization is achieved using triangular cut at the boundary and right angle bend with inner perturbation. The suggested antenna is excited from the lower layer through electromagnetic (EM) coupling technique. The antenna shows good impedance bandwidths of 90 MHz (2.43‐2.52 GHz) and 800 MHz (5.7‐6.5 GHz, respectively. The antenna shows 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth of 20 MHz at lower band and 120 MHz at upper band with improved gain > 6 dBi. The simulated and measured results are well agreed with each other. The antenna is promising wideband operation at the upper band. This antenna was implemented on fiberglass reinforcement laminated Arlon substrate with dielectric constant (?_r = 2.55), and the overall physical dimension of 30 × 30 × 3.048 mm³. The designed antenna can be extensibly applicable in WLAN/Wi‐MAX communication. The presented antenna is designed using hyperlynx IE3D and the simulated results are presented.     

Compact broadband circularly polarized slot‐patch antenna array

A simple design of circularly polarized slot‐patch antenna array with broadband operation and compact size is presented in this article. The antenna element consists of a circular slot and a semicircular patch, which are etched on both sides of a substrate. For the gain and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth enhancement, its array antennas are implemented in a 2 × 2 arrangement and fed by a sequential‐phase feeding network. The final 2 × 2 antenna array prototype with compact lateral dimension of 0.8λ_L × 0.8λ_L (λ_L is the lowest frequency within AR bandwidth) yielded a measured impedance bandwidth of 103.83% (2.76‐8.72 GHz) and a measured AR bandwidth of 94.62% (2.45‐6.85 GHz). The peak gain values within the AR bandwidth are from 2.85 to 8.71 dBi. A good agreement between the simulated and measured results is achieved. This antenna array is suitable for multiservice wireless systems covering WiMAX, WLAN and C‐band applications such as satellite communications.     

Investigation on decoupling of wide band wearable multiple‐input multiple‐output antenna elements using microstrip neutralization line

An investigation to enhance the decoupling between the elements of a compact wide band multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna is presented in this communication. A microstrip neutralization line (NL) is designed on the top of antenna surface to enhance the port isolation. The geometry is embedded on a jeans material to be apposite for the on‐body wearable applications. The antenna covers the frequency spectra from 3.14 to 9.73 GHz (around 102.4%) and fulfills the bandwidth requirements of WiMAX (3.2‐3.8 GHz), WLAN (5.15‐5.35/5.72‐5.85 GHz), C band downlink‐uplink (3.7‐4.2/5.9‐6.425 GHz), downlink defense (7.2‐7.7 GHz), and ITU (8‐8.5 GHz) bands. The port isolation is found to be more than 32 dB over the whole application bands. The antenna is appraised in a rich scattering environment with very minimal envelope correlation coefficient (ECC < 0.12) and great amount of diversity gain (DG > 9.8). The proposed MIMO antenna system is able to achieve the channel capacity loss (CCL) of less than 0.2 BPS/Hz throughout the whole operating band. The proposed structure is etched on an area of 30 × 50 mm². The simulated and measured performances of the proposed antenna are in well‐matched state.     

Design of miniaturized D‐band dual‐polarized dipole base station antenna based on coupling feeding

This article designs a coupling feeding miniaturized base station antenna. This base station antenna works in D‐band (2500‐2700 MHz). By introducing a bending structure to increase the current path of the dipole, the overall size of the dipole antenna can be reduced. The final design of antenna element size is only 36.8 × 36.8 mm² (0.32 × 0.32λ²). The simulation results show that the return loss of the two ports is greater than 23 dB, the isolation between the two ports is greater than 29 dB, the half‐power beamwidth of the antenna is 63° ± 1.5°, and the gain is greater than 9 dBi. The physical processing and simulation results are basically consistent, which prove the practicability of the dipole antenna. A broadband dipole antenna and this antenna are selected for array analysis. When it works in D‐band, the isolation of the antenna element designed in this article is better than that of the broadband dipole antenna.     

CSRR‐loaded T‐shaped MIMO antenna for 5G cellular networks and vehicular communications

This article proposes a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna for 5G‐based vehicular communication applications. The designed MIMO antenna consist of two element iterated T‐shape antenna with defected ground structure (DGS) and split ring resonator. The antenna providing reflection coefficient S₁₁ s₁₁ ≤10 dB and bandwidth of 6.3 and 3.96 GHz over the frequency range of 26.83 to 33.13 GHz and 34.17 to 38.13 GHz, respectively. For the suitable future vehicular millimetric wave communications, this antenna achieved resonant frequencies at 28, 33, and 37 GHz. The designed antenna has achieved peak gain of 7.11 dB in operating band. It is fabricated on 12 x 25.4 x 0.8 mm³ Rogers RT duroid 5880 substrate with dielectric constant (ε_r) of 2.2. The antenna is placed on vehicle in virtual environmental using ANSYS SAVANT tool and the simulated results are showing good matching with the measured results of proposed MIMO antenna.     

A compact asymmetric slot dual band antenna fed by CPW for PCS and UWB applications

A compact slot antenna with an overall dimension of 30 × 30 × 1.6 mm³ is proposed for dual band applications. The radiating element is a hexagonal shape patch which protrudes from a Co‐Planar Waveguide (CPW) feed into a step shape slot. The slot is basically rectangular in shape and is extended by inserting rectangular cuts of different sizes on the ground plane around it. The ultrawide impedance bandwidth is achieved using asymmetric feed line along with extended rectangular cuts around the slot. For realizing the second band for personal communication system applications (near 1.9 GHz), a metallic stub of quarter wave length is attached at the top of the slot. The measured impedance bandwidth (for S₁₁ < ?10 dB) is 110 MHz (1.86–1.97 GHz) for the first band and 9 GHz (3.0–12.0 GHz) for the second band. The antenna is further characterized by omnidirectional radiation patterns in the H‐plane, dumb‐bell shape radiation patterns in the E‐plane and a peak gain of 3–5 dBi over the ultrawideband. All the measured results are found to be in good agreement with the simulated results. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:243–254, 2015.     

A WLAN band‐notched compact four element UWB MIMO antenna

A compact four‐element multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna for ultra‐wideband (UWB) applications with WLAN band‐notched characteristics is proposed here. The proposed antenna has been designed to operate from 2 to 12 GHz while reject the frequencies between 4.9 to 6.4 GHz. The four antenna elements are placed orthogonal to attain the polarization diversity and high isolation. A thin stub connected to the ground plane is deployed as a LC notch filter to accomplish the rejected WLAN band in each antenna element. The mutual coupling between the adjacent elements is at least 17 dB while it has low indoor and outdoor envelop correlation (<0.45) and high gain with compact size of two boards, each measuring 50 × 25 mm². To validate the concept, the prototype antenna is manufactured and measured. The comparison of the simulation results showed good agreement with the measured results. The low‐profile design and compact size of the proposed MIMO antenna make it a good candidate for diversity applications desired in portable devices operating in the UWB region.     

A tiny EBG‐based structure multiband MIMO antenna with high isolation for LTE/WLAN and C/X bands applications

This article proposes a compact multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna with the electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structures for mobile terminals. The proposed MIMO antenna is composed of two radiation patches in which diagonal and folded microstrip lines are utilized to control the frequency bands. The radiation patch, one EBG structure and a rectangular‐shaped ground plane are etched on both sides of the antenna. The EBG structures have been employed for reducing the mutual coupling between the antenna elements. As a result of the effect of these structures, the mutual coupling between the two elements is reduced by less than ?30 dB. The proposed antenna is implemented on an FR4 substrate with dimensions 20 × 10 × 1 mm³. According to measured results, frequency ranges of 2.2 to 3.6 GHz and 5.1 to 5.9 GHz with S₁₁ < ?10 dB and also 3.7 to 5 GHz and 8 to 12 GHz with S₂₂ < ?10 dB have been obtained. Moreover, measured S₁₂ and S₂₁ with values of less than ?30 dB for both Ports have been realized. Additionally, the envelope correlation and radiation efficiency of the purposed antenna are less than 0.09 and more than 82%, respectively.