A Compact CPW-Fed Ultra-Wideband Multi-Input-Multi-Output (MIMO) Antenna for Wireless Communication Networks

Abstract

In this article, a compact coplanar waveguide (CPW) technique based ultra-wideband multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna is proposed. The design is characterized by a broad impedance bandwidth starting from 3 GHz to 11 GHz. The overall size of the MIMO design is $60\times60$ mm2 ( $1.24\times 1.24\,\,\lambda _{g}^{2}$ @ 3 GHz) with a thickness of 1.6 mm. To make the design ultra-wideband, the proposed MIMO antenna design has four jug-shaped radiating elements. The design is printed on a FR-4 substrate (relative permittivity of $\varepsilon _{r} = 4.4$ and loss tangent of $\mathrm {tan}\delta = 0.025$ ). The polarization diversity phenomenon is realized by placing four antenna elements orthogonally. This arrangement increases the isolation among the MIMO antenna elements. The simulated results of the ultra-wideband MIMO antenna are verified by measured results. The proposed MIMO antenna has a measured diversity gain greater than 9.98, envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) less than 0.02, and good MIMO performance where the isolation is more than -20dB between the elements. The group delay, channel capacity loss (CCL), and the total active reflection coefficient (TARC) multiplexing efficiency and mean effective gain results are also analyzed. The group delay is found to be less than 1.2ns, CCL values calculated to be less than 0.4 bits/sec/Hz, while the TARC is below -10dB for the whole operating spectrum. The proposed design is a perfect candidate for ultra-wideband wireless communication systems and portable devices.