Miniaturized beam-switching array antenna with MIMO direct conversion transceiver (MIMO-DCT) system for LTE and wireless communication applications

Abstract

Due to the increase in the data rates for modern wireless communications and recent generation standards, the switched beam approach and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) direct conversion transceiver (MIMO-DCT) have become promising techniques to satisfy these requirements. The combining of switched beam and MIMO-DCT through the use of multiple antenna elements has been investigated to overcome the high complexity and high spatial directivity of the conventional system. In this paper, a low cost miniaturized beam-switching array antenna with a MIMO-DCT system has been proposed, designed and analysed. The entire proposed system structure has two design stages. The first is the design of MIMO-DCT via the integration of microstrip antenna element, hybrid coupler, Wilkinson power divider and single-pole double-throw (SPDT) transmitter/receiver (T/R) switch. The second has the switched beam array antenna design using a Butler matrix feeding network and four distributed subarrays (DSs) of the MIMO-DCT. The entire proposed design structure components have been optimized using a commercial software to evaluate each component and meet the desired performance. The final proposed two-stage design has been fabricated, integrated, and the radiation characteristics have been demonstrated, using the Agilent FieldFox network analyser, to meet the requirements for LTE and wireless communication applications.