Received: 12 July 2019
DOI: 10.1002/mop.32160
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Compact MIMO antenna with
high isolation characteristic for
UWB portable applications
Yujia Chang | Qiang Liu | reduce the multipath fading effects, but also improve the
Xianggan Tang | Guangxing Du |
Guolin Li | Dong Cheng
College of Electrical and Information engineering, Hunan University,
Changsha, China
Correspondence
Qiang Liu, College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan
University, Changsha 410082, China.
Email: lqxx1982@gmail.com
Funding information
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Number:
61671203; Open Fund of IPOC (BUPT), Grant/Award Number: 2017B014
Abstract
A compact two elements multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) antenna is proposed. The simple monopoles act as
the radiating elements, and the parasitic resonant elements
near the monopoles make the antenna better matched in the
low band. At back of the substrate, the ground planes of the
elements are loaded by three curved branches for introduc-
ing additional resonant frequencies, which not only
decreases the volume of the antenna but also increases the
bandwidth. High isolation is achieved between the two
antenna elements by adding three parallel metal strips on the
back of the substrate. A MIMO antenna prototype with a
compact size of 39 × 17.5 × 1 mm3 is fabricated and mea-
sured. The measured and simulated results show that the
band of the antenna covers 3.13 to 3.20 GHz and 7.87 to
12.08 GHz, and it can prevent the interference from the
bands of WiMAX (3.4-3.8 GHz) and C-band (4-7.87 GHz).
The peak gain of the proposed antenna is 2.9 dBi, the enve-
lope correlation coefficient and mutual coupling between
the two elements are respectively lower than 0.001 and
−20 dB in the band, Therefore, the antenna is very suitable
for portable ultrawideband MIMO systems.
KEYWORDS
compact, high isolation, multi-input multi-output antenna, ultrawideband
Microw Opt Technol Lett. 2019;1–7. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mop
1 | INTRODUCTION
High data rate and good channel capacity make multi-input
multi-output (MIMO) systems a promising field in modern
wireless communications. Studies have shown that combin-
ing MIMO technology with ultrawideband (UWB) not only
channel capacity and link quality.1-4 The system capacity of
a MIMO communication system is related to the number of
antennas used at the end of the system and increases with
the number of antennas. However, in some limited spaces
such as small handheld devices, the small spacing between
multiple antenna elements increases the mutual coupling and
deteriorates the diversity performance of the antenna.2,5
Therefore, decreasing mutual coupling and the volume of
antenna are the key issues for portable UWB MIMO antenna
design.
At present, several methods such as neutralization line
(NL) method, defected ground structure (DGS), electromag-
netic band gap (EBG) structure and diversity techniques6-11
have been used for decoupling. The design in Reference 6
has a simple structure, and the metal strip loaded between
the two antenna elements makes the isolation more than
20 dB. DGS and polarization diversity techniques are intro-
duced between the two elements to reduce the mutual cou-
pling and improve the impedance matching.7,8 However, the
minimum isolations achieved in the two papers are only
15 dB. While in Reference 9, a novel MIMO antenna is
designed by using fractal theory, NL and DGS method, and
the isolation more than 20 dB is obtained when the spacing
between the two antenna elements is 0.52 mm. Unfortunately,
the above antennas have the same disadvantage of large size.
Literature10 use EBG for decoupling, while11 improves the
isolation by adding a T-shaped stub on the ground plane. The
former achieves a compact size, but it does not realize broad-
band, and the size of the antenna in Reference 11 is relatively
large. To the best knowledge of the authors, there were only a
few literatures about MIMO antenna can achieve both com-
pact size and high isolation.
In this article, a compact MIMO antenna with high isola-
tion for portable UWB systems is proposed. First, the configu-
rations of the MIMO antenna are given, and the evolution
process and the electric current distribution of antenna element
are analyzed. Then the functions of the isolation structure and
parasitic resonant elements are clarified. Furthermore, a proto-
type was simulated, fabricated, and measured for verification.
Finally, the performance comparison of the proposed MIMO
antenna with existing designs of the same type is presented.
© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1
2 CHANG ET AL.

FIGURE 1 Geometry and size of the proposed antenna [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

TABLE 1 Dimensions of the proposed antenna (unit: mm)

W L L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7
17.5 39 11 20.5 1.5 3.1 3.3 0.9 1.8
L8 W1 W2 TL1 TL2 TL3 R1 R2 R3
1.9 2.5 0.4 12.8 3.5 0.3 2.5 3.5 4
R4 R5 IW IL IL2 IL3 IL4 IL5 IL6
3 3.5 7 16 1 2.5 3.5 3.5 9
IL7 IL8 IW3 IW4 IW6 S1 S2 K1 K2
10 2.85 1.8 2.5 0.4 0.4 0.1 11 6.5

F I G U R E 3 Simulated S11 of the different antenna elements [Color

figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

The proposed deformed monopole is designed with a combi-

F I G U R E 2 Evolution of the proposed antenna element [Color
figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
2 | ANTENNA DESIGN
2.1 | Antenna configurations
The geometry of the proposed MIMO antenna is depicted in
Figure 1. The antenna consists of two elements A and B that
are symmetric about the axis X. Port 1 and port 2 are the
feed ports of two elements of the antenna, respectively. Each
antenna element includes a monopole and a parasitic reso-
nant element on the top layer of the substrate, and a ground
plane loaded with three curved branches at the bottom layer.
nation of rectangular (L1 × W1) and circular (the radius is R1)
stubs to form a mushroom shape, and the distance between
two monopoles of MIMO antenna is L2. When the simple
deformed monopole is excited, the three branches on the
ground are coupled by the excited monopole. Three identical
parallel metal strips are etched between the elements for
improves the isolation between the two ports, the width of the
parallel metal strips is S1 and the spacing is S2. The simulation
of the proposed antenna is performed with the aid of the
Ansoft High Frequency Simulator Structure, and the specific
dimensions of the antenna after optimization are listed in
Table 1.
To illustrate the design process of the antenna, the evolution
of the antenna elements is shown in Figure 2. The initial antenna
element is represented as Ant.1, a mushroom-shaped deformed
monopole act as the radiator, and the 10 dB-impedance
CHANG ET AL. 3

F I G U R E 4 Current distribution of multiple-input multiple-output antenna elements at 3.17, 8, and 10 GHz [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 5 Simulated S11 of the different values of the starting F I G U R E 6 Simulated S11 of the different values of the ending angle
angle θ1 of branch 1 rad [Color figure can be viewed at θ2 of branch 2 rad [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

bandwidth is 6.57 to 9.38 GHz as shown in Figure 3. In

order to increase the bandwidth, branch 1 and branch 2 are
loaded on the ground of Ant.1 and the antenna denoted as
Ant.2. The inner radius and outer radius of the branch 1 are R2
and R3, while the inner radius and outer radius of the branch
2 are R4 and R5, respectively. Branch 1 and branch 2 introduce
resonance frequency in the lower band to increase the band-
width of antenna elements. The simulation results show that
the bandwidth of Ant.2 is 3.26 to 3.32 GHz and 6.15 to
11.38 GHz. Sequentially, an inverted L-shaped branch 3 with a
total length of (IL6 + IL7) is added and the final antenna ele-
ment Ant.3 is obtained. After adding the branch 3, the mutual F I G U R E 7 Simulated S11 of the different lengths of the IL7 of the
couplings between branch 3 and previous branch 1 and branch proposed antenna [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
2 contribute an additional resonant frequency at 8 GHz, and the
lower 10 dB-impedance band has slight offset toward low-
frequency direction and the reflection coefficient on the higher branches and the monopole introduce several additional res-
band exhibit preferable stability. onant frequencies, and it makes the antenna element suitable
Figure 4 shows the electric current distribution of MIMO for UWB operation.
antenna element at the frequencies of 3.17, 8, and 10 GHz. It The influence of the radian change of branch 1 branch 2 on
is noted that the electric current is mainly distributed in the proposed antenna is shown in Figures 5 and 6. With the
branch 1 and branch 3 for 8 GHz, and in branch 2 and increase of branch 1 rad starting angle θ1, the resonance point in
branch 3 for 10 GHz. While for 3.17 GHz, the electric cur- low frequency band shifts to lower frequency, and the high fre-
rent is distributed in all branches and the monopole. There- quency band also exhibits different matching. Since the initial
fore, the couplings between any two of the three curved frequency of the UWB band is 3.1 GHz, the starting angle of the
4 CHANG ET AL.
F I G U R E 8 Current distribution of multiple-input multiple-output antenna without and with parasitic resonant elements and isolation structure at
10 GHz [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 9 S-parameters of the multiple-input multiple-output
antennas for the case 1 and case 2 [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 1 0 S11 of the two antennas with and without parasitic
resonant elements [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 1 1 Simulated and measured S-parameters of the
proposed multiple-input multiple-output antenna [Color figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
branch 1 rad is selected as θ1 = 2π/3. Similarly, with the increase
of branch 2 rad ending angle θ2, the interference of WLAN band
to antenna becomes smaller and smaller. Finally, the radian of
branch 1 and branch 2 are chosen to be 2π/3 to 2π and −π/10 to
20π/21, respectively. It can be seen from Figure 7 that the length
of IL7 in branch 3 affects the resonant frequency position in the
lower band. Finally, the value of IL7 is selected as 10 mm.
2.2 | Isolation structure and parasitic
resonant elements
Two parasitic resonant elements with the distance of TL1 are
introduced near the monopoles. The isolation structure based
on three parallel metal strips is placed in the middle of the
two antenna elements. To further demonstrate the role of the
isolation structure and parasitic resonant elements, the
current distributions at the sample frequency 10 GHz for
antenna without and with the isolation structure and parasitic
resonant elements are simulated as shown in Figure 8,
CHANG ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 2 Simulated radiation patterns of the proposed multiple-input multiple-output antenna in E-plane and H-plane [Color figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
corresponding to the case 1 and case 2. Due to the isolation
structure, the energy from excited right element B coupled
to the unexcited left element A terminated with a 50 Ω mat-
ched load is reduced, especially the energy coupled to
branch 3 of the element A. The isolation enhancement is
mainly due to the introduction of the new coupling path, and
the partial energy is coupled from element B to the isolation
5
structure. Figure 9 shows the specific reflection of the reduction
in mutual coupling in terms of antenna performance, and the
S-parameters of the antenna for the two cases are compared.
The isolation between the two elements is increased by 33%
(15-20 dB) in the band. Particularly, the S21 in lower band
decreased from −25 dB to below −34 dB. The return loss of
case 2 also has better performance. Figure 10 shows the S11 of
6 CHANG ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 3 Simulated realized gain and efficiency of the
proposed multiple-input multiple-output antenna [Color figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
two MIMO antennas, and the only difference between the two
antennas corresponding to the two curves is with and without
resonant parasitic elements. It can be seen that the parasitic res-
onant elements improve the impedance matching characteristic
especially in the lower band, and have no effect on the operat-
ing frequency range.
3 | RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The proposed MIMO antenna is fabricated on a low-cost FR4
dielectric substrate with the dielectric constant of 4.4, dielectric
loss tangent of 0.02, and the thickness of 1 mm, as shown in
Figure 11. Two 50-Ω type-subminiature-A connectors are sol-
dered at the input ports of the MIMO antenna for the excitation.
The Keysight N5225A vector network analyzer was used to
measure the impedance match and isolation performance of
the proposed MIMO antenna. The simulated and measured
S-parameters are plotted in Figure 11, it can be observed that the
measured operating bands are 3.13 to 3.20 GHz and 7.87 to
12.08 GHz. The measured mutual couplings at lower and higher
frequency bands are below −30 dB and −20 dB, respectively.
The proposed antenna can suppress interference from the bands
of WiMAX (3.4-3.8 GHz) and C-band (4-7.87 GHz). The mea-
sured results agree well with the simulated results in band.
Figure 12 presents the simulated copolarization and
cross-polarization radiation patterns of the proposed MIMO
antenna at 3.17, 8, and 10 GHz in E-plane and H-plane. It is
observed that the E-plane exhibits omnidirectional pattern at
the lower frequency of 3.17 GHz and the cross-polarization
is below −12.25 dB, while the copolarization in H-plane
have two main beams. In the higher band, E-plane cop-
olarization becomes directional in the broadside direction,
and the beamwidth of two main beams of H-plane cop-
olarization becomes wider. Figure 13 shows the simulated
realized gain and efficiency of the proposed MIMO antenna,
and the efficiencies at the high band are larger than 79%.
Envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is an important
parameter used to describe the diversity performance of
F I G U R E 1 4 Simulated and measured envelope correlation
coefficient (ECC) [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
MIMO antenna, and it is introduced to quantitatively describe
the correlation between two antenna ports. The ECC between
antenna elements i and j can be calculated by the relationship
between their radiation pattern parameters. It is expressed by
the following equation12:
Ð Ð 2
 
 4π E i ðθ, ϕÞE *j ðθ, ϕÞdΩ
rp
ρeij = Ð Ð ÐÐ  2 ð1Þ
2  
4π jE i ðθ, ϕÞj dΩ 4π E j ðθ, ϕÞ dΩ
where Ei(θ, ϕ) = Ei, θ(θ, ϕ) + Ei, ϕ(θ, ϕ), represents the elec-
tric field radiation pattern when port i is excited. However, mul-
tiple spherical areas based on the antenna pattern results is
required to be dealt when calculating the ECC. For highly effi-
cient antennas (almost 100%), the ECC can be determined from
the antenna isolation. A simplified method for calculating the
ECC by S-parameters was derived in Reference 12:
 2
 * 
Sii Sij + S*ji Sjj 
ECC =   2    2  2  ð2Þ
1 − jSii j2 − Sji  1− Sjj  − Sij 
where Sii represents the reflection coefficient of i port and Sij
represents the isolation between i and j ports.
In order to obtain better antenna performance, the ECC
must be less than 0.5. The measured and the simulated
results of ECC are shown in Figure 14. The ECCs in most of
band are close to 0, and it is below 0.05 over the whole
UWB band. This illustrates that the proposed MIMO
antenna has good diversity characteristics.
4 | PERFORMANCE COMPARISION
To illustrate the merits of the proposed MIMO antenna, a
comparison between the proposed compact MIMO antenna
and other reported antennas of the same type is given in
Table 2. The proposed MIMO antenna has the compact size
of 682.5 mm2, which is obviously less than the antenna size
of other designs in Table 2. Furthermore, the antenna
achieves the best isolation and ECC. It can be seen that the
CHANG ET AL.
TABLE 2 Comparison of the proposed MIMO antennas with existing typical designs
References Size (mm2)
6 50 × 26 = 1300
7 30 × 30 = 900
8 32 × 32 = 1024
9 26.75 × 32.94 = 881.15
10 31 × 20 = 620
11 24 × 34 = 816
Proposed 39 × 17.5 = 682.5
Abbreviations: ECC, envelope correlation coefficient; MIMO, multiple-input multiple-output.
proposed MIMO antenna exhibits better performance, espe-
cially in terms of size and isolation, Therefore, it provides a
viable solution for many portable MIMO applications.
5 | CONCLUSION
A compact MIMO antenna with high isolation characteristic is
presented and discussed. The curved branches loaded on the gro-
und plane not only provide additional resonant frequencies but also
reduce the volume of the MIMO antenna. By introducing three
identical parallel metal strips on the bottom surface of the substrate,
more than 20 dB isolation between two antenna elements is
achieved. The designed antenna can suppress interference from the
bands of WiMAX (3.4-3.8 GHz) and C-band (4-7.87 GHz). More-
over, the measured ECCs of the proposed MIMO antenna are
almost 0 over the operating band. Therefore, the proposed MIMO
antenna is a good candidate for portable UWB MIMO systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China under Grant 61671203 and the
Open Fund of IPOC (BUPT) under Grant 2017B014.
O R C ID
Qiang Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6046-8161
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How to cite this article: Chang Y, Liu Q, Tang X,
Du G, Li G, Cheng D. Compact MIMO antenna with
high isolation characteristic for UWB portable appli-
cations. Microw Opt Technol Lett. 2019;1–7. https://
doi.org/10.1002/mop.32160