This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2016.2537379, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION
An Active Integrated Ultra-Wideband MIMO
Antenna
S. K. Dhar, M. S. Sharawi, O. Hammi, and F.
M. Ghannouchi
Abstract—A radio frequency (RF) amplifier integrated ultra-
wideband (UWB) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) an-
tenna system is presented. Instead of designing both the antenna
and amplifier separately based on 50 Ω interfaces, they are co-
designed without this impedance requirement so that improved
wideband antenna matching and total radiation efficiency are
achieved. The design is implemented with a two-element semi-
ring UWB MIMO antenna integrated with a commercially
available UWB amplifier. The antenna has the size of 0.01λ20
where λ0 is the free space wavelength at 1.8 GHz. The integrated
antenna shows minimum realized gain and efficiency of 14.1 dBi
and 60%, respectively, over the 1.8-5.5 GHz band. Diversity
parameters of the integrated MIMO antenna are evaluated.
Detailed design and measurement procedures are presented with
simulation and experimental results.
Index Terms—Active integrated antennas, co-design, MIMO
antenna, UWB.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology has re-
ceived significant interest in recent years because of its exotic
features like providing high data throughput, better transmis-
sion quality and increased coverage. Due to the requirement
of low power, low cost and multi-functionality, ultra-wideband
(UWB) wireless systems are highly desirable. Thus, the de-
mand for UWB MIMO antennas that are suitable for low cost,
low power and multifunctional high speed mobile terminals is
on the rise.
Designing a UWB MIMO antenna covering 1.8-5 GHz
for mobile devices is challenging considering the size of the
device and satisfying the different MIMO antenna parame-
ters especially efficiency and envelop correlation coefficient
(ECC) [1]. Mutual coupling between MIMO antenna ele-
ments degrades the isolation which consequently affect the
radiation efficiency and diversity performance of the antenna.
In addition, radio frequency (RF) sub-systems following the
antenna do not have exactly 50 Ω input/output impedance
across the whole frequency band especially when designed
for UWB systems. Such mismatch between the antenna and
RF front-ends deteriorates the system performance in terms
of antenna matching which results in reduced total radiation
efficiency and realized gain of RF systems. This is due to the
mismatch at the interface of the antenna and its consecutive
stages in the wireless system (the RF front-end). Moreover,
difficult and tedious optimization procedures are often required
to achieve UWB impedance matching of MIMO antennas. A
S. K. Dhar and F. M. Ghannouchi are with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
(email: {sagar.dhar, fghannou}@ucalgary.ca).
M. S. Sharawi is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, KFUPM,
Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: msharawi@kfupm.edu.sa).
O. Hammi is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, American
University of Sharjah, UAE, (email:ohammi@aus.edu).
0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
novel MIMO active integrated antenna (AIA) design approach
is introduced in this work that can provide wideband antenna
matching by co-designing the UWB antenna with its RF ampli-
fier. Improved radiation efficiency and diversity performance
of the integrated UWB MIMO antenna are obtained.
AIA refers to the antennas that are integrated/jointly de-
signed with active devices for performance enhancement.
Based on the application and configuration, AIAs can be cat-
egorized into five groups: oscillating active antennas, mixing
active antennas, low noise active antennas, non-fostering active
antennas and power amplifying active antennas. In oscillating
AIAs, the feedback loop approach is usually adopted because
of its ability to realize high performance self-oscillating active
antennas with compact size and low phase noise. In this
type of AIA, an antenna is used as a feedback path to an
unstable transistor leading to an oscillating system as shown
in [2]–[4]. Self-mixing active antennas are reported in [5]–
[7] where active device nonlinearity is used for frequency
up/down conversion. Low noise active antennas are shown
in [8]–[10]. Amplifying active antennas reported in [11]–[13]
show improved power added efficiency (PAE). The physical
significance relies in the fact that the antenna inherently acts
as a bandstop structure which suppresses the higher order
harmonics and provides higher efficiency. Besides, the antenna
can be designed so that it shows the impedance characteristics
for optimum PAE at the fundamental frequency. On the other
hand, non-fostering active antennas [14], [15] use active cir-
cuits (negative impedance converter- NIC) to emulate negative
reactance which compensates the fostered reactance of small
antennas and can offer wideband operation. However, none of
the previous works addressed active integrated UWB MIMO
antenna design.
In this work, an RF amplifier integrated two-element UWB1
MIMO antenna is presented. The co-design procedure between
the amplifier and the MIMO antenna is first introduced, and
then an implementation example is presented. The antenna is
designed on a substrate of 50 × 90 × 0.76 mm3 with a single
radiator size of 12 × 24 mm2 which is 0.01λ20 at the lowest
operating frequency. The active integrated MIMO antenna
operates in the band of 1.8-5.5 GHz with a minimum gain and
efficiency of 14.1 dBi and 60%, respectively. The integrated
MIMO antenna system shows improved radiation efficiency
and gain compared to the 50 Ω based system. The obtained
simulation and measurement results are in well agreement.
II. MIMO AIA D ESIGN P ROCEDURE
The UWB active integrated MIMO antenna is co-designed
with an RF amplifier considering a transmitting RF front-end2 .
A generic block diagram of a two-element transmitting active
MIMO antenna system is shown in Fig. 1. The design flow
adopted is shown in Fig. 2 and can be described as follows:
1) First, the MIMO antenna structure is modeled in an
electromagnetic field solver, and its two-port impedance
1 According to the definition by the FCC, a UWB device/system is the
one having a fractional bandwidth more than 25% in general, or a minimum
bandwidth of 1.5 GHz when the center frequency is greater than 6 GHz.
2 A conceptually similar procedure can be applied to a receiving path with
an LNA.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2016.2537379, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION 2

Γin , Zin ΓL , ZL Γant , Zant 4) After finalizing the integrated antenna schematic in
ADS, it is simulated in CST to observe the radiation
Transistor/
RFin Input MN Prematched Output MN
characteristics of the integrated MIMO antenna where a
Amplifier co-simulation of amplifier circuit and antenna structure
is performed using CST-MS and CST Design Studio
ZS, ΓS Zout , Γout ZMN , ΓMN Two Element
MIMO
(CST-DS). The radiation and diversity parameters of the
Γin , Zin ΓL , ZL Antenna integrated MIMO antenna system are then evaluated.
Γant , Zant For tuning, the above procedure is repeated starting
Transistor/ from the second step by selecting an alternative Γs .
RFin Input MN Prematched Output MN
Amplifier Or, the antenna structure can be modified if satisfactory
performance is not achieved. Both ADS and CST are
ZS, ΓS Zout , Γout ZMN , ΓMN used to get flexibility in the design process. ADS is used
in amplifier design while CST is used for the integrated
Fig. 1: A generic two-element MIMO integrated antenna
system assessment.
system block diagram.
Following the aforementioned procedure3 , the co-design of
a semi-ring two-element UWB MIMO antenna and its two
CST Studio Suite Advanced Design
System
RF amplifiers is demonstrated considering a transmitting RF
front-end. Although, the design procedure mentioned above
MIMO Import
Antenna Antenna S-
is for the case of a transistor, it can be also applied to
Modeling parameters a prematched amplifier considering simultaneous conjugate
matching. However, if a matching network either at the input
Co-simulate
Characterize
or output port is not needed for a wideband prematched
Integrated
Antenna
Amplifier amplifier, the corresponding design steps can be skipped. In
this work, a commercially availabe UWB prematched amplifier
Check
is used to evaluate performance of the co-designed active
Select ΓS and
Radia#on
Calculate Γout
MIMO antenna compared to a traditional 50 Ω based design.
Characteris#cs
The integrated system shows improved input matching of the
antenna which consequently improves the realized gain and
Evaluate Design and
Diversity Op#mize IMN
the total radiation efficiency.
Performance and OMN
III. T RANSMITTING MIMO AIA D ESIGN
Fig. 2: Integrated two-element MIMO antenna system design
flow. A. Antenna Characterization
A two-element semi-ring monople MIMO antenna is mod-
eled and simulated in CST as shown in Fig. 3a using a
and radiation characteristics are obtained. In this work, RO4350B substrate having the height of 0.76 mm, a dielectric
Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave constant r = 3.5 and loss tangent 0.004. It is designed on
Studio (MS) is used to model and simulate the antenna a 50 × 90 mm2 substrate size suitable for standard mobile
structure. terminals with a single antenna size of 12 × 24 mm2 . The
2) After stabilization, noise and gain circles of the amplifier active antenna implementation process starts with measuring
are plotted over the band of interest. Based on the the S-parameters data of the antenna. The fabricated prototype
selected gain while having a trade-off with noise figure, of the MIMO antenna is shown in Fig. 3b. The antennas were
ΓS is determined. Then, Γout is calculated for the band fabricated in house (at KFUPM) using an LPKF (S103) milling
of interest according to (1) where S11 , S12 , S21 and machine.
S22 are the measured S-parameters of the amplifier. To characterize the antenna, its S-parameters were mea-
This optimization procedure is carried out in Keysight sured using an Agilent N9918A vector network analyzer.
Advanced Design System (ADS). The measured and simulated S-parameters are shown in Fig.
3c. It can be seen that the measured results are in well
S12 S21 ΓS agreement with the simulations. The slight deviation might
Γout = S22 + (1)
1 − S11 ΓS be attributed to the difference in material modeling during
simulation along with fabrication tolerances. To avoid carrying
3) Once ΓS and Γout are determined, input and output
errors in afterward steps, measurement results are used in the
matching networks (IMN and OMN) are designed so
design procedure detailed in section II. The UWB impedance
that optimum antenna reflection coefficient Γant (int)
bandwidth of the antenna is realized by manipulating the
can be achieved according to (2) and optimized to
radii of the inner and outer circles by which the semi-ring
convert 50 Ω to ΓS and Γant to ΓL =Γ∗out .
is formed. By varying these two parameters, two different
∗
Zant − ZM N 3 It should be noted that the design procedures presented are considering
Γant (int) = (2)
Zant + ZM N UWB matching and therefore the design variables are frequency dependent.

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2016.2537379, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION 3

20
7 12

Measured S−parameters (dB)

P2
10 S11(dB)
TL4
24 C2
S (dB)
22
4 TL3 S12(dB)
0
S (dB)

Amp li fi er
21
VDC −10
RF Choke C3
1.7 90 (ADCH 80+)
7 TL2
C1 −20
TL1
66 P1 −30
Y 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency (GHz)
Top
GND Z X (a) (b)
50 (c)
(a) (b) Fig. 4: UWB Amplifier test board: (a) schematic, (b) fabricated
0 prototype and (c) measured S-parameters.
−5
S−parameters (dB)

−10

−15
The amplifier S-parameters are measured and the connectors
S (Simulated)
11 effects are de-embedded. The measured two-port de-embedded
−20 S21(Simulated)
S-parameters of the amplifier are shown in Fig. 4c, good gain
S11(Measured)
−25
S21(Measured)
and matching (up to 4 GHz) are observed. Afterwards, stability
−30
parameters (∆ and k) are calculated and the amplifier was
1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency (GHz) found to be unconditionally stable over the frequency band
1-6 GHz (|∆| < 1 and k > 1). The minimum noise figure,
(c)
N Fmin , of the amplifier is found to be 3.5-4 dB over the range
Fig. 3: Two-element MIMO UWB antenna system, (a) two of 1-6 GHz. It should be noted that most of the commercially
element UWB MIMO antenna model. [All dimensions are in available UWB amplifiers are found to be prematched to
mm], (b) UWB semi-ring MIMO antenna fabricated prototype 50 Ω. But, this is not a design requirement for the approach
(left:bottom view, right: top view), (c) Simulated and measured adopted in this work. As long as the amplifier shows UWB
UWB antenna S-parameters. performance, there is no need to match it with 50 Ω.

C. Integrated UWB MIMO Antenna

modes can be excited. UWB impedance bandwidth can be
Traditionally, antennas and RF front-end electronic systems
obtained if these modes are merged. It can be seen that the
are designed separately with close to 50 Ω port impedance.
fabricated antenna (as well as the simulated one) does not
Generally, -10 dB matching of input and output ports for any
have good match (below -10 dB level) over the whole band
RF subsystems is taken as acceptable values for single, multi-
1.8-5.8 GHz and the port isolation is also less than 10 dB
band/wideband systems. But, it is observed that when two such
as shown in Fig. 3c. It is worth mentioning herein that both
50 Ω based subsystems (individually showing -10dB matching
simulation and measurements were performed when the two
to 50 Ω port impedance) are cascaded directly, the integrated
input ports of the antennas are loaded with 50 Ω. However,
system performance can be degraded due to the mismatch
higher isolation between MIMO antenna elements is necessary
at the interface. This is because when two subsystems are
because mutual coupling between MIMO antenna elements
cascaded, they actually no more interface through 50 Ω but
deteriorates radiation efficiency and diversity performance.
rather see each others actual impedances which may not
The improvement in matching and overall system performance
give -10 dB matching anymore over the band of interest
is left for the integrated antenna design approach to take
that was originally met by the individual subsystems.4 The
care of by changing the loading condition of the antenna
situation will be worse when -6 dB matching of the individual
to a suitable complex impedance which will be obtained
subsystems is adopted.5 For a UWB system, the mismatch
using the amplifier integrated design approach. Thus, tedious
effect comes with greater impact, and the cascaded system
optimization steps of the antenna structure are avoided.
may not show UWB matching at all.
For example, when the measured results of a single UWB
B. Amplifier Characteristics antenna and the UWB amplifier are considered when they are
In this design, a commercially available prematched UWB directly cascaded, the effective reflection coefficient of the
(1-6 GHz) RF amplifier is used (GVA 63+ from Mini- cascaded antenna is calculated according to (2)6 the results
Circuits). Its S-parameters were measured by the test circuit are shown in Fig. 5a. It can be seen that the antenna matching
shown in Fig. 4a. The fabricated prototype of the board is is significantly degraded in the range of 2.3-4 GHz when both
shown in Fig. 4b where RO4350B substrate is used similar to the amplifier and antenna are designed seperately based on
the antenna design. The width of the transmission lines was
4 For example, if two systems having normalized impedances of 0.5 and 2
1.7 mm with the lengths of T L2 = T L3 = 3 mm, and T L1 =
are cascaded, they will show -4.44 dB matching at the interface where they
T L4 = 5 mm (to be able to attach lumped components). The show individually -9.54 dB matching when terminated by 50 Ω.
lumped element values were C1 = C2 = 1 nF, C3 = 0.1 µF 5 -6 dB matching level is also accepted for miniaturized multi-band antennas.

and VDC = 5 V . 6 Replace Z

M N with ZOU T of amplifier

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2016.2537379, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION 4

0 0 TL1 TL2 L1 TL3 TL4 L2 TL5

Ampli fi er
P1

Reflection Co−efficient (dB)

Reflection Coefficient (dB)

S-parame te r Antenna
−5 −5
C1 C2 C3 C4 Port1
−10 −10 X: 1.76e+09 X: 5.49e+09
Y: −10 Y: −10
M IMO
Antenna
−15 −15 Struct ure

−20 −20
Γant(Standalone)
Antenna
TL1 TL2 L1 TL3 Ampli fi er TL4 L2 TL5 Port2
−25 Antenna Reflection (Integrated) −25 P2
Γ (Integrated) S-parame te r
Antenna Reflection (Standalone) ant
−30 −30 C1 C2 C3 C4
2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

(a) (b) Fig. 6: Active integrated two-element MIMO antenna

schematic.
Fig. 5: Simulated reflection coefficients (a) before and after
cascading with an RF amplifier (Direct connection), (b) before
integration (Standalone) and after active integration using co-
design (Integrated). behavior of the amplifier is beyond the scope of this paper
and will be the focus of future work. The antenna reflection
coefficient after integration is calculated and shown in Fig. 5b.
It can be seen that the antenna matching is improved over the
50 Ω and then cascaded. This mismatch at the interface will band 1.75-5.5 GHz compared to the standalone antenna. This
degrade the overall system efficiency and gain. Thus, it is will improve the realized gain and total radiation efficiency of
obvious that co-designing RF subsystems is important for an the antenna, and so the total system performance.
optimized integrated system performance. The simulated S-parameters of the MIMO antenna system
The design process starts with the optimized amplifier are shown in Fig. 7a. It can be seen that the input port isolation
gain selection from the gain and noise circles. Based on is more than 12 dB over the entire band. This higher port
the selection of ΓS , Γout is determined according to (1). isolation compared to standalone antenna can be explained and
Once ΓS and Γout are determined, input and output matching verified from the simulation results by the loop gain from the
networks (MNs) can be designed to match 50 Ω input port and integrated system input port 1 to port 2 which is comprised of
Γant to ΓS and ΓL = Γ∗out , respectively. However, matching the gain of amplifier 1 (S21 ), isolation between the two antenna
the antenna complex impedance to ΓL might not guarantee elements and the isolation of amplifier 2 (S12 ). Although, port
the optimum matching at the input of the antenna over the isolation at the input of the amplifier is different than that at
desired frequency band in terms of bandwidth and radiation the input of the antenna, this port isolation is also necessary
efficiency. Consequently, design optimization is required to to reduce crosstalk between two MIMO branches as well as to
provide optimum matching at the input of the antenna which is improve overall system efficiency [17]–[20].8 In fact, mutual
accomplished by designing the output MN so that the optimum coupling at the input of the amplifier can cause higher degree
Γant (int) is achieved as defined by (2). This approach differs of complexity in system design since the crosstalk appearing
from the traditional one in including the antenna reflection at the output will be accompanied with non-linear distortion
coefficient as a primary design parameter along with the by the amplifier. The integrated system also shows good input
amplifier gain and noise figures. Thus, optimum antenna port matching which will improve overall system efficiency.
reflection efficiency can be achieved which is crucial for the To observe the amplifier gain, it is necessary to simulate the
total active integrated system radiation performance. amplifying path with two ports. Such simulation is performed
Accordingly, input and output MNs are designed7 for op- in CST where port 2 is loaded by the antenna input impedance.
timum integrated antenna matching and system gain. The Thus, the integrated amplifier gain is found to be more than
finalized circuit diagram is shown in Fig. 6 having the lumped 13 dB over the band 1.8-5.5 GHz.
component values of C1 = C4 = 0.1 pF, C2 = 0.4 pF, C3 =
0.7 pF, L1 = 1 nH, L2 = 0.5 nH and transmission line 0
S11 30
length of T L1 = 10 mm and T L2 = T L3 = T L4 = T L5 = S
22 0.8
Total Radiation Efficiency

−5
S−parameters (dB)

S (Integrated)
Realized Gain (dBi)

21
3 mm. Detailed design procedure for MN can be found in S (Standalone)
21
25
0.6
−10
[16]. All transmission lines had the width of 1.7 mm. It should 20
−15 0.4
be noted that the small signal analysis of the amplifier is
15
carried on to prove the concept, and highest possible gain −20 Realized Gain (Co−designed)
Realized Gain (Cascaded) 0.2
Total Efficiency (Co−designed)
from the integrated system was the design objective along −25
1 2 3 4 5 6
10 Total Efficiency (Cascaded)
0
2 3 4 5
with optimum antenna input impedance matching. Thus, si- Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

multaneous optimum input and output matching are attempted (a) (b)
eventhough the amplifier is prematched. The MNs present
Fig. 7: Simulated AIA MIMO antenna system, (a) S-
the optimum source and load impedance to the amplifier for
parameters, (b) radiation efficiency and realized gain.
maximum possible gain. However, similar design procedure
can be adopted for a transistor too. Considering the non-linear
8 Please note that isolation improvement takes place at the input of the added
7 Since
the amplifier is not well matched over the band 1.8–6 GHz, an input structures (i.e. as in decoupling networks or an amplifier at this case) such as
matching network was needed to achieve the required design criteria. in [17] or at the actual antenna ports such as in [18].

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2016.2537379, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION 5

After finalizing the integrated antenna circuit, it is extremely anechoic chamber. The 2-D normalized radiation patterns at
important to observe its radiation characteristics. To do so, a 1.8, 2.4 and 5.2 GHz for φ = 0◦ and θ = 90◦ planes are
co-simulation using CST is performed and the realized gain shown in Fig. 10. The maximum realized gain of the integrated
of the integrated antenna is observed. The realized gain of the MIMO antenna system compared to the simulated results are
integrated antenna was found to be more than 14 dBi over the shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that the measured results are in
band 1.8-5.5 GHz. This high realized gain of the AIA can be well agreement to the simulated ones. The minimum measured
directly tied to the amplifier gain and appropriate input loading realized gain is found to be more than 14 dBi over the band
of the antenna. The total radiation efficiency of the standalone 1.8-5.8 GHz. The antenna efficiencies for the integrated system
antenna after integration is calculated by looking at the power are estimated by measuring input power to the MIMO AIA,
accepted and power radiated by the antenna (given in CST) power gain, biasing and radiated power and are found to be
and found to be more than 63% over the band 1.8-5.2 GHz. more than 60% which is in well agreement with the simulated
To appreciate the advantage of the co-design approach, the results and verifies the improvement obtained using the co-
antenna total radiation efficiency and overall realized gain are design approach.
compared with the system having direct connection between
the amplifier and the antenna (reference to 50Ω). The results 90° 90°
120° 60° 120° 60°
are shown in Fig. 7b and it can be seen that the total radiation
efficiency and realized gain are both improved noticeably 150° 30° 150° 30°
utilizing the co-design approach compared to the traditional 0 0
−10 −10
50 Ω based cascaded system. ±180°
−20
Eφ1(dB) 0° ±180°
−20
0°
The finalized active integrated transmitting MIMO antenna Eθ1(dB) Eφ1(dB)

Eφ2(dB) Eθ1(dB)
system is fabricated and populated with the lumped compo- −150° Eθ2 (dB) −30° −150° Eφ2(dB) −30°
nents. The implemented prototype is shown in Fig. 8. The Eθ2 (dB)

measured input reflection coefficients are shown in Fig. 9 −120° −60° −120° −60°
−90° −90°
compared to the simulated ones. It can be seen that the
measured results are relatively in good agreement with the (a) (b)
simulated ones up to 5 GHz. The deviation is due to the non- 90° 90°
120° 60° 120° 60°
idealities of lumped components and hand soldering.
150° 30° 150° 30°

0 0
−10 E (dB)
−10
−20 φ1 −20
±180° Eθ1(dB) 0° ±180° 0°
Eφ2(dB) Eφ1(dB)

E (dB) Eθ1(dB)
θ2
Eφ2(dB)
−150° −30° −150° −30°
Eθ2 (dB)

−120° −60° −120° −60°

−90° −90°

(c) (d)
90° 90°
120° 60° 120° 60°
Fig. 8: Fabricated prototype of the active integrated MIMO
150° 30° 150° 30°
antenna system: (a) top view and (b) bottom view. Eφ1(dB)
0 −10 0
−20 −30 Eθ1(dB) −10
−20
±180° Eφ2(dB) 0° ±180° 0°
Eθ2 (dB) Eφ1(dB)
Eθ1(dB)
0 −150° −30° −150° Eφ2(dB) −30°
Eθ2 (dB)

−120° −60° −120° −60°

S−parameters (dB)

−10 −90° −90°

(e) (f)
−20

S11 (measured)
Fig. 10: Measured normalized 2-D radiation patterns: (a) φ =
−30 S11(simulated) 0◦ plane at 1.8 GHz, (b) θ = 90◦ plane at 1.8 GHz, (c) φ = 0◦
S21(measured) plane at 2.4 GHz (d) θ = 90◦ plane at 2.4 GHz, (e) φ = 0◦
S21(simulated) plane at 5.2 GHz and (f) θ = 90◦ plane at 5.2 GHz.
−40
1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency (GHz)
To evaluate the diversity performance of the active in-
Fig. 9: Measured S-parameters of the MIMO AIA.
tegrated MIMO antenna, the ECC is calculated from the
measured radiation patterns using the radiated fields equation
To evaluate the radiation characteristics of the fabricated (see [1]) and is shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that the ECC
MIMO AIA prototype, it was measured in a Satimo Starlab of the measured MIMO AIA is below 0.33 over the band 1.8-

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TAP.2016.2537379, IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION
5.2 GHz. The measured values are below the standard of 0.5
with a good margin. The diversity gain (DG) of the MIMO
AIA is calculated from the ECC by the expression shown
in (3) as presented in [21]. The average DG of the MIMO
AIA is found to be 9.5 dB over the band of interest which
is near to the maximum value of 10 dB. Considering all the
results in terms of gain, efficiency, isolation, ECC and DG,
the proposed co-designed MIMO AIA shows good results and
it can be a good candidate for integrated MIMO RF system
design that will provide improved antenna matching and thus
overall improvement in RF system efficiency and realized
gain. Although the prototype was based on a transmitting
RF amplifier case, a similar procedure can be applied on the
receiving path.
p cation and vehicle identification applications,” IEEE Transactions on
DG = 10 1 − ρe
35
ECC (measured)
ECC (simulated)
Realized Gain (measured)
30
Realized Gain (simulated)
Realized Gain (dBi)
25
20
15
10
1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Frequency (MHz)
Fig. 11: Measured and simulated maximum realized gain and
ECC of the MIMO AIA system.
IV. C ONCLUSIONS
In this work, a novel UWB active integrated MIMO antenna
design is presented. The antenna is designed on a substrate of
50 × 90 × 0.76 mm3 . Instead of designing both amplifier and
antenna with 50 Ω interface, they are co-designed thus improv-
ing the overall system performance. The integrated MIMO
antenna system shows minimum realized gain of 14.17 dBi
and ECC less than 0.33. The integrated antenna shows total
radiation efficiency greater than 60% over the operating band.
Detailed design procedures are presented with simulation and
measurement results which are in well agreement. Such, co-
design approach not only improves the performance of MIMO
antennas but also reduces the tedious computational analy-
sis/optimization of antenna structure which is of uttermost
interest in RF system design.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided
by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia, under project number IN-131027.
R EFERENCES
[1] M. S. Sharawi, “Printed multi-band mimo antenna systems and their
performance metrics [wireless corner],” Antennas and Propagation Mag-
azine, IEEE, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 218–232, Oct. 2013.
0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
6
[2] Y.-Y. Lin, C.-H. Wu, and T.-G. Ma, “Miniaturized self-oscillating
annular ring active integrated antennas,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, vol. 59, no. 10, pp. 3597–3606, Oct. 2011.
[3] C.-H. Wu and T.-G. Ma, “Self-oscillating semi-ring active integrated
antenna with frequency reconfigurability and voltage-controllability,”
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 61, no. 7, pp.
3880–3885, Jul. 2013.
[4] C. Wu and T.-G. Ma, “Miniaturized self-oscillating active integrated
antenna with quasi-isotropic radiation,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 933–936, Feb. 2014.
[5] W. Choi, Changyul-Cheon, and Y. Kwon, “A v-band MMIC self oscillat-
ing mixer active integrated antenna using a push-pull patch antenna,” in
IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest, pp. 630–633,
Jun. 2006.
[6] M. Rahim, W. Chong, and T. Masri, “Active integrated antenna with
image reject mixer design,” in The Second European Conference on
Antennas and Propagation, EuCAP, pp. 1–4, Nov. 2007.
[7] C. Montiel, L. Fan, and K. Chang, “A novel active antenna with
self-mixing and wideband varactor-tuning capabilities for communi-
(3) Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 44, no. 12, pp. 2421–2430,
Dec. 1996.
0.5 [8] A. Dierck, H. Rogier, and F. Declercq, “A wearable active antenna for
0.4
global positioning system and satellite phone,” IEEE Transactions on
Antennas and Propagation, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 532–538, Feb. 2013.
0.3
Envelop Correlation Coefficient (ECC)
[9] Y. Taachouche, F. Colombel, and M. Himdi, “Very compact and broad-
0.2
band active antenna for VHF band applications,” International Journal
0.1 of Antennas and Propagation, vol. 2012, p. e193716, Feb. 2012.
0 [10] S. Z. Fan and E. L. Tan, “A low cost omnidirectional high gain active
−0.1 integrated antenna for WLAN applications,” in 2012 IEEE Asia-Pacific
−0.2
Conference on Antennas and Propagation (APCAP), pp. 124–125, Aug.
2012,
−0.3
[11] Y. Qin, S. Gao, and A. Sambell, “Broadband high-efficiency circularly
−0.4
polarized active antenna and array for RF front-end application,” IEEE
4500 5000 5500
−0.5
6000
Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 54, no. 7, pp.
2910–2916, Jul. 2006.
[12] H. Kim, I.-J. Yoon, and Y. J. Yoon, “A novel fully integrated transmitter
front-end with high power-added efficiency,” IEEE Transactions on
Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 53, no. 10, pp. 3206–3214,
Oct. 2005.
[13] D. Segovia-Vargas, V. Gonzlez-Posadas, J. L. Vzquez, E. Rajo, L. Incln,
and C. Martin, “An active broadband-transmitting patch antenna for
GSM-1800 and UMTS,” Microwave and Optical Technology Letters,
vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 350–354, Jun. 2004.
[14] M. N. Alam, R. A. Dougal, and M. Ali, “Electrically small broad-
band VHF/UHF planar antenna matched using a non-foster circuit,”
Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, vol. 55, no. 10, pp. 2494–
2497, Oct. 2013.
[15] C. White, J. Colburn, and R. Nagele, “A non-foster VHF monopole
antenna,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 11, pp.
584–587, 2012.
[16] G. Gonzalez, Microwave Transistor Amplifier: Analysis and Design,
2nd ed,Prentice Hall, Aug. 1996.
[17] C.-H. Wu, G.-T. Zhou, Y.-L. Wu, and T.-G. Ma, “Stub-loaded reactive
decoupling network for two-element array using even–odd analysis,”
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE, vol. 12, pp. 452–
455, 2013.
[18] Z. Li, Z. Du, M. Takahashi, K. Saito, and K. Ito, “Reducing mutual
coupling of mimo antennas with parasitic elements for mobile termi-
nals,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 60, no. 2,
pp. 473–481, 2012.
[19] S. A. Bassam, M. Helaoui, and F. M. Ghannouchi, “Crossover digital
predistorter for the compensation of crosstalk and nonlinearity in mimo
transmitters,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques,
vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 1119–1128, 2009.
[20] D. Saffar, N. Boulejfen, F. M. Ghannouchi, A. Gharsallah, and
M. Helaoui, “Behavioral modeling of mimo nonlinear systems with
multivariable polynomials,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory
and Techniques, vol. 59, no. 11, pp. 2994–3003, 2011.
[21] K. Rosengren and P.-S. Kildal, “Radiation efficiency, correlation, di-
versity gain and capacity of a six-monopole antenna array for a mimo
system: theory, simulation and measurement in reverberation chamber,”
in IET Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation, vol. 152, no. 1, pp.
7–16, 2005.