A triple‐slotted substrate integrated cavity‐fed 2 × 2 metasurface antenna with wide bandwidth

This article presents a triple‐slotted substrate integrated cavity (SIC)‐fed 2 × 2 metasurface antenna. Three modes can be obtained including TM₁₀ mode of the metasurface, TE₂₁₀, mode and TE₃₁₀ mode of the SIC. The TE₂₁₀ mode of SIC radiates through the two side slots and is coupled to the metasurface mainly by the two side slots, while the TE₃₁₀ mode of SIC is mainly coupled to the metasurface by the middle slot. Comparing with the reported SIC‐backed slot antenna, dual‐slotted SIC‐fed patch antenna or the metasurface antenna, the proposed antenna exhibits the advantage of wide bandwidth with flat gain. One prototype operated at 10 GHz was fabricated and measured with 10‐dB fractional bandwidth of 33%, the gain of 8.1 dBi at the center frequency, the cross polarization level of 20 dB and the gain ripple of 1.5 dB.     

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.     

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.     

A compact dual‐band 2 × 1 metamaterial inspired mimo antenna system with high port isolation for LTE and WiMax applications

This article proposes a compact (43 × 26 × 0.8 mm³) dual‐band two‐element metamaterial‐inspired MIMO antenna system with high port isolation for LTE and WiMAX applications. In this structure, each antenna element consists of a square–ring slot radiator encircling a complementary split ring resonator. A tapered impedance transformer line feeds these radiating apertures and shows good impedance matching. A 2 × 3 array of two‐turn Complementary Spiral Resonator structure between the two antenna elements provides high dual‐band isolation between them. The fabricated prototype system shows two bands 2.34 – 2.47 GHz (suitable for LTE 2300) and 3.35 – 3.64 GHz (suitable for WiMAX). For spacing between two antennas of 10 mm only, the measured isolation between the two antenna elements in the lower band is around ?32 dB while that in the upper band is nearly 18 dB. The system shows a doughnut‐shaped radiation patterns. The peak measured antenna gains for the proposed MIMO system in the lower and higher bands are 3.9 and 4.2 dBi, respectively. The MIMO system figure of merits such as the envelope correlation coefficient, total efficiency are also calculated and shown to provide good diversity performance.     

Compact planar frequency reconfigurable multiple‐input‐multiple‐output antenna with pattern and polarization diversity characteristics for WiFi and WiMAX standards

A compact planar frequency reconfigurable dual‐band multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna with high isolation and pattern/polarization diversity characteristics is presented in this article for WiFi and WiMAX standards. The MIMO configuration incorporates two symmetrically placed identical antenna elements and covers overall size of 24 mm × 24 mm × 0.762 mm. Reconfiguration of each antenna element is achieved by using a PIN diode which allows antennas to switch from state‐1 (2.3‐2.4 GHz and 4.6‐5.5 GHz) to state‐2 (3.3‐3.5 GHz and 4.6‐5.5 GHz). In state‐1, the configuration offers isolation ≥18 dB and 20 dB in lower band (LB) and upper band (UB) respectively; whereas, in state‐2, isolation ≥21 dB and 20 dB in LB and UB respectively is achieved. The same decoupling circuit provides high isolation in dual‐band of two states, which makes overall size of the proposed design further compact. The antennas are characterized in terms of envelope correlation coefficient, radiation pattern, gain, and efficiency. From measured and simulated results, it is verified that the proposed frequency reconfigurable dual‐band multi‐standard MIMO antenna design shows desirable performance in both operating bands of each state and compact size of the design makes it suitable for small form factor devices used in future wireless communication systems.     

Modified ground with 50 Ω step fed WLAN notch 2 × 2 MIMO UWB antenna

In this research paper, an optimized 2 × 2 MIMO UWB antenna (antenna‐E) with half circled radiators as well as 50 Ω step fed has been introduced. The proposed UWB MIMO antenna has been evolved from recent peer published papers that provide WLAN notch (5.15‐5.85GHz), ultra wide band width (3.1‐10.6 GHz) and again a very good isolation (?20 dB) also maintained. In this paper the evolutions have been derived from antenna‐A to antenna‐E. The Ultra wide band is achieved by using step feed line, cutting a metal strip on a partial ground plane, a rectangular slot underneath the feed line of each radiator in antenna‐E. A high isolation (?20 dB) is obtained by introducing two inverted Г shaped stubs in the ground plane. Both antenna‐D and antenna‐E maintain high isolation (?20 dB). But antenna‐E performs better isolation compared to antenna‐D. The notch at WLAN band (5.15‐5.85GHz) is achieved by etching rectangular C‐shaped slot on the both the radiators. In antenna‐E two radiators are placed horizontally where as in antenna‐D two radiators placed orthogonally. It has been observed that the dimension of final outcome (antenna‐E) is reduced by 33% compared to antenna‐D without compromising the overall performance of the antenna.     

Dual‐polarized textile‐based two/four element MIMO antenna with improved isolation for dual wideband application

This article presents the designs of dual‐polarized dual wideband textile‐based two and four elements multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) antennas for WLAN (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/c/n) and WiMAX (IEEE 802.16d) applications. These MIMO antennas cover the frequency spectra from 1.5 to 3.8 GHz (87% bandwidth) and 4.1 to 6.1 GHz (40% bandwidth). The characterization of the textile jeans substrate is determined experimentally using a vector network analyzer and dielectric assessment kit. These antennas provide near about 70% radiation efficiency with around 4 dBi peak gain in desired frequency ranges. The diversity performance is improved noticeably by printing meandered line structures on both planes. The proposed MIMO structure has a very low envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) <0.1 and high diversity gain (DG) >9.9. The Medium effective gain (MEG) also lies within a satisfactory value of ±3 dB. The two elements MIMO Antennas provide linear polarization at all desired frequency band while the four‐element antenna provides circular polarization at 2.4 GHz and linear polarization at 5.2 and 5.8 GHz application bands. The antenna also depicts good performance in wearable condition with safe specific absorption rate < 1.6 W/kg in all desired frequencies.     

Design and analysis of on-demand reconfigurable WiMAX/WLAN high isolation 2 × 2 MIMO antenna oriented adjacent/orthogonally for imaging applications in UWB-X band

In this reported work, two dual notched bands from 3.39 GHz to 3.92 GHz and from 4.43 GHz to 5.48 GHz for the WiMAX band (3.3–3.8 GHz) and for (lower) WLAN band (5.15–5.35 GHz) MIMO antenna with adjacent/orthogonal orientations has been investigated. Also, the proposed antenna is capable of controlling these notched bands whenever the need for power saving arises by reconfiguring them using PIN diodes. The issue of isolation between the radiating elements has been overcome by placing the radiating structures in the adjacent and orthogonal arrangement. The proposed antenna is characterized proving an average gain of 4.15/4.37 dBi and maximum radiation efficiency of 91/87% for adjacent/orthogonal orientation. The proposed antenna also shows good agreement with simulated and measured impedance bandwidth, diversity performances in terms of ECC, DG, TARC, and CCL for which values are well below the permissible range.     

Ultra‐compact 4‐port DR antenna for multi‐input multi‐output standards

Here, an ultra‐compact Multi‐Input‐Multi‐Output (MIMO) antenna system is presented for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) applications. The proposed antenna compactness approach is based on using Cylindrical‐Dielectric‐Resonator‐Antenna (CDRA) symmetry with the help of image theory to achieve the best size reduction of the resonators and maintain the resonance frequency of the original CDRA. The electric/magnetic walls approach is utilized to miniaturize the size by exploring the symmetry and antisymmetry of the resonant mode. First, a CDRA for MIMO system is designed and tested in terms of return loss and radiation efficiency. Then, two configurations of MIMO‐Antennas (two and four ports) are examined by using the same substrate size. The 2‐port‐MIMO antenna is built from two half‐CDRs (HCDRs) facing each other. Similarly, four‐quarter‐CDRs (QCDRs) are created to form a 4‐port MIMO antenna system. As a result, a 75% size reduction is achieved (size of 30 × 30 × 7.62 mm³). The measured impedance bandwidth for the 4‐port MIMO antenna is 5.4% (5.4‐5.7 GHz), with more than 15 dB isolation levels. Proper levels of Envelope Correlation Coefficients (ECCs) are also achieved (1 × 10^?2‐4 × 10^?2), with a channel capacity loss (CCL) of 0.04 bits/S/Hz. The proposed MIMO antennas are suitable for compact wireless communication systems.     

Wide‐bandwidth multifrequency circularly polarized monopole antenna for wireless communication applications

In this article, wideband circularly polarized monopole antennas with multiresonating frequencies are presented for Bluetooth, WLAN, WiMAX, and X‐band applications. The designed antennas have dimensions of 50 × 35 × 1.6 mm³. Two different substrates (FR4‐epoxy and PTFE) are used for fabricating the antennas. The antennas consist of corner truncated I‐shaped and C‐shaped strips excited by a 50 Ω microstrip feed line. The parametric analyses are performed with the help of Ansoft HFSS V.11 EM simulator. Both antennas have been fabricated and measured. The measured percentage bandwidth of the antenna made by FR4 substrate is 31.32% (centered at 1.66 GHz), and 64.85% (centered at 5.69 GHz). The percentage bandwidth of antenna made by PTFE substrate is 20.57% (centered 2.43 GHz) and 68.74% (centered at 7.39 GHz). In addition to that, there exists 3 dB AR bandwidth for LHCP of about 1050 MHz for 5.2 GHz WLAN‐band. The reflection coefficient, radiation patterns, and the gains of both the antennas are studied in detail. It is found that the measured and simulated results are in good agreement.     

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.     

A two‐layer beam‐steering array antenna with 4 × 4 modified Butler matrix fed network for switched beam application

This paper presents a novel two layers beam‐steering array antenna fed by a 4 × 4 modified Butler matrix. Each of the radiation elements have been replaced by a collection of 2 × 2 circularly polarized (CP) square patches, which joined together by a modified sequentially rotated feed network. The antenna array consists of 2 × 5 CP square patches, which connected to four ring sequential rotation and fed by butler matrix. The proposed Butler matrix which plays a role as beam‐steering feed network consists of four novel 90° circular patch couplers and two 45° half circular patch phase shifter. Altogether, using of a 2 × 5 phased array antenna and a modified Butler matrix cause to empower array antenna for covering frequency range between 4.67 to 6.09GHz, the maximum gain of 14.98 dB and 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1.2GHz (4.9~6.1GHz) is attained.     

A 2 × 2 array antenna with circular polarization and conical beam radiation

A circular disk patch antenna loaded with a hemi‐circular slot is initially proposed for achieving circular polarization (CP). To exhibit broad CP bandwidth that can cover the WLAN 2.4 GHz operating band, the patch antenna is fed by an L‐shaped probe. To further attain conical beam radiation with peak gain of ～8 dBic at ±30 degrees theta angle (θ), a 2 × 2 array type is proposed in this study, in which four circular disk patch array elements are arranged in a sequentially rotated fashion via a corporate feed network. Here, desirable 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth and 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of ～5% and 21% were measured. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:223–228, 2014.     

Offset planar MIMO antenna for omnidirectional radiation patterns

An offset quad element multi‐band planar MIMO antenna with omnidirectional radiation patterns is proposed for nonline of site (NLOS) communication on low‐cost FR‐4 dielectric substrate for 4G and future technologies. A 1 × 2 power divider arm results in dual beam and enhances diversity parameters and omnidirectional radiation patterns. Moreover, the MIMO antenna limits the proximity/coupling effects using a T‐shaped isolator and achieves more than 12.4 dB of isolation between the radiating ports. The proposed design covers WLAN/WiMAX bands with gain and radiation efficiency of more than 2.6 dBi and 71%, respectively, in 2:1 VSWR bands of bandwidths 16.39% (2.24‐2.64 GHz) and 7.88% (3.41‐3.69 GHz). The ?10 dB impedance bandwidth is more than 280 MHz in each band. An ECC level of ≤ 0.01 has been achieved in the whole band.     

Ten switched‐beams with 2 × 2 series‐fed 2.4 GHz array antenna and a simple beam‐switching network

This article presents a 2 × 2 series fed 2.4 GHz patch antenna array having multiple beam switching capabilities by using two simple 3 dB/90° couplers to achieve required amplitude and phase excitations for array elements with reduced complexity, cost and size. The beam switching performance with consistent gain and low side lobe levels (SLL) is achieved by exciting the array elements from orthogonally placed thin quarter‐wave (λ_g/4) feeds. The implemented array is capable to generate ten (10) switched‐beams in 2‐D space when series fed elements are excited from respective ports through 3 dB quadrature couplers. The dual polarized characteristics of presented array provide intrinsic interport isolation between perpendicularly placed ports through polarization diversity to achieve independent beam switching capabilities for intended directions. The implemented antenna array on 1.575 mm thick low loss (tan δ = 0.003) NH9450 substrate with ε_r = 4.5 ± 0.10 provides 10 dB return loss impedance bandwidth of more than 50 MHz. The measured beam switching loss is around 0.8 dB for beams switched at θ = ±20°, Ф = 0°, 90°, and 45° with average peak gain of 9.5 dBi and SLL ≤ ?10 dB in all cases. The novelty of this work is the capability of generating ten dual polarized switched‐beams by using only two 3 dB/90° couplers as beam controllers.     

Design of compact multiband pattern diversity antenna for WiMax,LTE and WLAN applications

A compact multiband pattern diversity antenna for Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) applications is being proposed. The pattern diversity antenna is designed for 2.6 GHz LTE, 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMax, 3.3 GHz MIMO and 5.2 GHz WLAN applications for mobile devices. The compact size of the MIMO antenna (41.05 × 21.1 mm) is due to having compact individual monopole antennas each of dimension 17.5 × 10 mm. A T-shaped and inverted L-shaped stub in the ground plane reduces mutual coupling due to near field whereas slots introduced in the ground plane prevents current to flow through the common ground plane. The important characteristics of MIMO antenna like diversity gain and envelope correlation coefficient have also been presented. Measured and simulated radiation patterns presented show that the MIMO antenna proposed provide pattern diversity.

     

A compact printed ultra‐wideband multiple‐input multiple‐output prototype with band‐notch ability for WiMAX,LTEband43, and WLAN systems

A compact ultra‐wideband multiple‐input multiple‐output (UWB‐MIMO) antenna with good isolation and multiple band‐notch abilities is developed in this work. It consists of two quadrant shaped monopole antennas backed by ground stubs. A good isolation is achieved due to the two proposed extended curved ground stubs. The frequency rejection for the WLAN system is realized by loading a capacitive loaded loop resonator adjacent to the feed line. The band rejection for the WiMAX and LTE band43 system is achieved by embedding a quadrant shaped CSRR on each radiator's surface. The measured bandwidth of the antenna is 3.06 GHz‐11 GHz (|S₁₁| < ?10 dB and |S₂₁| < ?18 dB) with a band rejection from 3.5 GHz‐4 GHz to 5.1 GHz‐5.85 GHz, respectively. Time domain performances are investigated in terms of group and phase delay characteristics. Diversity characteristics are evaluated in terms of the envelope correlation coefficient, mean effective gain, and channel capacity loss.     

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.     

Multi‐standard,multi‐band planar multiple input multiple output antenna with diversity effects for wireless applications

Wireless generations require the miniaturized radiating elements for the portable devices. This research article presents a miniaturized multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna for IEEE 802.11 (WLAN) and IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) wireless standards. The multi‐standard, multi‐band MIMO with 1 × 2 diversity arms is impedance matched with 50 Ω microstrip line on FR‐4 dielectric substrate having dielectric constant 4.4 and 1.524 mm thickness. The simple low profile design covers16.46% (2.23‐2.64 GHz) and 12.37% (3.26‐3.70 GHz) microwave frequency bands, with voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) ≤ 2 achieves more than 12.5 dB of isolation between radiating ports. The proposed MIMO with inverted L shaped slot exhibits more than 73% efficiency, and more than 4 dBi gain at resonant frequencies. The presented MIMO is designed on FR‐4 dielectric substrate of size 45.1 × 90.2 mm². The compact size of the radiating element is 6.7 × 6.7 mm². The effect of radiations on the body has been evaluated using specific absorption rate (SAR) and found to be in safety limit.     

Design of a dual‐band MIMO dielectric resonator antenna with high port isolation for WiMAX and WLAN applications

A novel dual‐band MIMO dielectric resonator antenna with high port isolation for WiMAX and WLAN applications is designed and investigated. The proposed antenna operates at 3.5 and 5.25 GHz bands. High port isolation is achieved using hybrid feeding mechanism that excites two orthogonal modes at each frequency bands. The measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna covers the entire WiMAX (3.4–3.7) GHz and WLAN (5.15–5.35) GHz bands. The scalable behavior along with the frequency ratio of the antenna has also been investigated in this work. The measured isolation between antenna ports is ?52 dB at the lower band and ?46 dB at the upper band, respectively. Envelope correlation coefficient, diversity gain and mean effective gain have also been investigated. Moreover, measured results are in good agreement with the simulated ones.