Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications

ISSN: 0920-5071 (Print) 1569-3937 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tewa20

Compact CPW-fed UWB MIMO antenna with a

novel modified Minkowski fractal defected ground
structure (DGS) for high isolation and triple band-
notch characteristic

Jeet Banerjee , Anirban Karmakar, Rowdra Ghatak & Dipak Ranjan Poddar

To cite this article: Jeet Banerjee , Anirban Karmakar, Rowdra Ghatak & Dipak Ranjan
Poddar (2017): Compact CPW-fed UWB MIMO antenna with a novel modified Minkowski fractal
defected ground structure (DGS) for high isolation and triple band-notch characteristic, Journal of
Electromagnetic Waves and Applications, DOI: 10.1080/09205071.2017.1354727

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09205071.2017.1354727

Published online: 31 Jul 2017.

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 Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/09205071.2017.1354727

Compact CPW-fed UWB MIMO antenna with a novel modified

Minkowski fractal defected ground structure (DGS) for high
isolation and triple band-notch characteristic
Jeet Banerjeea  , Anirban Karmakarb, Rowdra Ghatakc and Dipak Ranjan Poddard‡
a
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology, Adamas
University, Kolkata, India; bElectronics & Communication Engineering Department, Tripura University, Tripura,
India; cMicrowave and Antenna Research Laboratory, ECE Department, National Institute of Technology,
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Durgapur, India; dElectronics & Tele-Communication Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata,
India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

A compact printed ultra-wideband (UWB) multiple input multiple Received 7 February 2017
output (MIMO) antenna with coplanar waveguide feed for portable Accepted 6 July 2017
UWB applications is presented. The radiator and ground plane of
KEYWORDS
the antenna are etched with an overall size of 26.75 mm × 41.5 mm.
Multiple-input-multiple
The UWB MIMO antenna consists of two planar identical monopole output (MIMO) antenna;
antenna elements and a novel modified Minkowski fractal defect is ultra-wideband (UWB);
introduced in the ground plane for enhancing the isolation of the fractal; band notch; planar
MIMO system. The proposed antenna has an impedance bandwidth monopole; directive gain
(for │S11│ < −10 dB) ranging from 3.1 to 11.5 GHz (VSWR ≤ 2) and
an isolation of more than 15 dB is achieved between the adjacent
planar monopoles. The band rejection phenomenon in wireless local
area network band is achieved by etching rotated C-shaped slots
from the respective patches. Also, two identical rectangular slots are
etched on the respective ground planes which enhances the lower
UWB bandwidth and cause interference suppression at Wi-Max and
C-band (3.3–3.7 and 3.7–4.2 GHz), respectively. A further improvement
in isolation from 14.71 to 21.81  dB is achieved by the addition of
parallel rectangular strips at the back side of the antenna. Acceptable
agreement is obtained between the simulated and measured antenna
performance parameters.

1. Introduction
Since the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) first approved the rules for commercial
use of an ultra-wideband (UWB) technology in 2002 [1], UWB systems have been explored
as a promising and trending technology. It is highly challenging due to the wide impedance
bandwidth of about 110% with a frequency range extending from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. Challenges
in designing an UWB antenna pertain to achieving proper impedance matching, Omni-
directional radiation pattern, compact antenna size, and low manufacturing cost for

CONTACT  Anirban Karmakar  anirban.ece@gmail.com

‡
Current affiliation: Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Future Institute of Engineering &
Management, West Bengal, India
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 2   J. BANERJEE ET AL.

consumer electronics applications [2,3]. However, severe interference from several narrow-
band communication systems causes high electromagnetic interference with the UWB spec-
trum. The most notable bands among them are 3.3–3.7 GHz (Wi -MAX), 3.7–4.2 GHz (C-Band),
5.15–5.825 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN), and 7.9–8.4 GHz (X-Band satellite
communication).
Digital communication using multi-input multi-output (MIMO) processing has emerged
as a breakthrough for wireless communication systems of revolutionary importance [4]. All
wireless technologies face the challenges of signal fading, multipath interference, and limited
spectrum. MIMO technology exploits multipath to provide higher data throughput. It also
simultaneously increases in range and reliability all without the need of additional bandwidth
or transmission power. In order to realize the high data transmission capacity as well as to
overcome the multipath fading limitation of short range communications, MIMO technology
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is combined with UWB technology [5]. There are a number of antennas discussed for UWB
and UWB MIMO application. Some of these antennas have complex geometrical structures
[6] and are of comparatively large size [7–9]. They use decoupling unit cells to improve the
isolation aspects [8–10]. A few more antennas operate only over a part of the allotted UWB
spectrum [6,11].
Research in fractal shaped antennas gained maturity with study of geometrical influences
on antenna characteristics and UWB feature due to the self similar and space filling property
of fractal shapes like Minkowski curve [12], Koch curve [13] as well as a fractal-based Hilbert
curve slot [14]. The space filling property helps to enhance the effective electrical path length
of the antenna in a given compact area [15].
UWB systems face electromagnetic interference in the UWB range with some of the exist-
ing narrowband communication systems such as IEEE 802.11 WLAN ranging from 5.15–
5.85 GHz, Wi-Max (3.3–3.7 GHz), C-band (3.7–4.2 GHz), and X-band uplink satellite
communication (7.9–8.4 GHz). To avoid possible interference of unwanted narrowband
systems with the UWB systems, it is required to use additional filtering circuits. However, the
use of independent filters results in increased complexity, size, cost, and insertion loss of the
overall UWB system. There are a number of design approaches reported in [16,17] which
tries to reduce this interference. UWB diversity antennas with band notch characteristics in
WLAN band are reported in [18,19]. However, majority of the antennas reported in [18–20]
are 2 × 2 UWB MIMO antennas which did not enhance the quality of communication channel
significantly. On the other hand, 4 × 4 UWB MIMO antennas reported in [21,22] enhance the
quality of communication channel but are comparatively larger in size. The dimensions of
the antenna presented in [23–25] are very large, whereas the antennas reported in [22,26,27]
are prone to suffer from high electromagnetic interference in the Wi-Max and WLAN fre-
quency bands due to the absence of band notching mechanisms. The incorporation of fractal
monopoles presented in [28] for isolation improvement is comparatively larger in size and
takes into account single band notching mechanism. It is a very challanging task to design
a planar antenna with compact size, multiple band rejection capabilities, and low mutual
coupling.
In this work, a printed UWB MIMO antenna consisting of two planar identical monopole
elements with a novel modified Minkowski fractal defected ground structure has been pro-
posed. The proposed antenna has a compact size of 26.75 × 41.5 = 1110.12 mm2. Previously,
defected ground structures have been proposed by Ahn et al. [29]. Defected ground struc-
tures introduce a slow wave effect which in turn helps in efficiently suppressing the unwanted
 JOURNAL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND APPLICATIONS   3

harmonics [30]. To reduce mutual coupling between antenna elements various methodol-
ogies have been presented in the literature such as photonic band gap [31], unit cell DGS
[32], etc. In this work a modified Minkowski fractal defected ground structure has been
proposed which reduces the overall size of the antenna and enhances the isolation between
the antenna elements. The CPW feed and the fractal defected ground structure helps in
reducing the overall size of the antenna. It also alters the reactive part of antennas input
impedance which in turn helps in tuning the impedance bandwidth of the antenna [33],
[34]. In order to achieve triple band notch at WLAN (5.15–5.85 GHz), Wi-Max (3.3–3.7 GHz),
and C-Band (3.7–4.2 GHz) frequencies, two distinguished slots are etched on the planar
monopoles (rotated C-shaped slots) and on the ground plane (rectangular slots), respectively.
The rectangular slots in the ground plane help in enhancing the lower bandwidth of the
antenna and hence cause both bandwidth enhancement and band rejection. An isolation
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of more than 15 dB is achieved throughout the UWB band. In addition, further enhancement
in isolation is achieved by placing two parallel rectangular strips at the rear end (back side)
of the antenna.

2.  Antenna design

The geometry of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna is shown in Figure 1(a). It is realized
on FR4 substrate with a dimension of 26.75 × 41.5 × 1.6 mm3, and with a dielectric constant
of 4.4 (εr = 4.4) and loss tangent of 0.02 (tan δ = 0.02). The antenna consists of two planar
hammer shaped monopoles denoted as P1 and P2 which serves as the key for achieving
the UWB bandwidth as shown in Figure 1(a), and are fed with CPW line through the feeding
ports 1 and 2, respectively. A half elliptic monopole antenna is modified to hammer shape
to enhance its wideband behavior essentially required for UWB systems. Initially an
elliptical cylinder is added to a rectangle and later a rectangular feed line is added. Next,
two elliptical cylinders were added to the two edges of the rectangular monopole. The
width of feeding line is decided such that characteristic impedance of 50-Ω is obtained.
The recursive generation of Minkowski fractal geometry and its implementation to the
antennas ground structure are depicted in Figure 1(c) and (d), respectively, in the
subsequent sections.
Evolution of planar monopole of antenna structure with the application of the modified
Minkowski geometry at the center of the common ground plane is shown in Figure 2.
Iteration-wise return loss variation of the antenna is displayed in Figure 3.
It is also evident from Figure 3 that the lower operating frequency shifts slightly toward the
upper frequency bands of the UWB, with the increase in iteration of modified Minkowski fractal
geometry on the antennas ground structure. It can be observed from Figures 4 and 5(b) that
the addition of modified Minkowski fractal geometry for creating a defect in the ground struc-
ture increases the electrical path length. This in turn helps in reducing mutual coupling
between the antenna elements. Further improvement in isolation is achieved by the addition
of parallel strips at the rear end of the antenna. The optimized dimensions for the UWB MIMO
antenna are listed in Table 1. The antenna shape and its dimensions were optimized by elec-
tromagnetic simulation using commercial electromagnetic simulation software CST (Computer
Simulation Technology) Microwave StudioTM.
 4   J. BANERJEE ET AL.
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Figure 1. The optimized geometry of the UWB MIMO antenna and the isolation improvement structures.
(a) Front view of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna, (b) Schematic view of the rotated C-shaped slot, (c)
Recursive generation of the fractal Minkowski structure, (d) creation of modified fractal defect in the
ground plane.

Figure 2. Evolution of planar monopole of antenna structure with the application of modified Minkowski
geometry at the center of the common ground plane. (a) Initial UWB MIMO antenna front view, (b) etching
of rotated C-shaped slots on the respective planar monopoles and the application of the modified fractal
defect (after 2nd iteration) to the antennas common ground plane, (c) etching of rectangular slots on the
ground plane and the addition of two parallel rectangular strips at the rear end of the antenna, (d) Antenna
front view after the application of 3rd iteration of the modified fractal defect in the ground structure.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND APPLICATIONS   5
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Figure 3. Variations in resonance characteristics for different stages of antenna design.

Figure 4. Comparison of isolation between antenna elements for various designs as indicated in Figure 2.

2.1.  Effect of rotated C- shaped slots

The band rejection (interference suppression) characteristics at WLAN (5.15–5.85 GHz) band
is achieved by etching rotated C-shaped slots from the respective planar monopoles. A
 6   J. BANERJEE ET AL.
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Figure 5. Simulated surface current distribution on the antenna. (a) with rotated C-shaped slots, (b) with
modified Minkowski defect in the ground structure, (c) with rectangular slots in the ground plane, (d)
with rectangular strips at the back side of the antenna.

schematic view of the rotated C-shaped slot is depicted in Figure 1(b). The total length of
the slot is estimated by mathematical equation [28] given below:
c
LCS = √ ≈ 2SL2 + 2SW − SG (1)
2fnotch 𝜀eff

where, c is the speed of light in free space, εeff is the effective dielectric constant, fnotch is
center frequency of the notch band, LCS is the length of the slot, SL2, SW and SG are design
parameters. The calculated length of the slot using (1) is 16.59 mm, whereas actual length
of the rotated C-shaped slot is 16 mm, which is very close to the calculated length for the
center frequency of the notch band (fnotch = 5.5 GHz). The UWB behavior of the proposed
MIMO antenna is achieved as a result of the hammer-shaped monopoles with optimum
dimensions. Now, using a fractal slot such as second-order Hilbert curve slot or a second-or-
der Koch curve slot reduces the area occupied by the slots but it does not reduce the overall
area occupied by the Hammer shaped monopoles. So, using fractal geometry for designing
the notch element does not lead to miniaturization of the overall MIMO antenna
dimension.
On the other hand, the use of fractal geometry over the monopoles causes additional
coupling between the elements of the MIMO antenna (as space waves) and leads to design
 JOURNAL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND APPLICATIONS   7

Table 1. Dimensions of the proposed antenna (mm).

Antenna parameters Value (mm)
L 26.75
W 17.00
Lp 13.84
D 6.00
Lg 14.50
Wg1 7.55
Wg2 19.60
Wg3 7.55
FW 2.20
G11 0.60
Parallel strips
SW 0.75
SS 1.45
SL 10.5
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Rotated C-shaped slot

SL1 3.00
SW 7.00
SL2 2.20
SG 0.80
Rectangular slots
R1 13.20
R2 0.05
R3 1.95
Defected ground structure
GP1 5.30
GP2 5.30
GPW1 9.00
GPL1 8.50
G1 2.50
G2 3.00
G3 3.00
l 9.00

complexity during fabrication process. In order to further clarify the underlying mechanism
of the UWB MIMO antenna the simulated S-parameter and surface current distribution at
the notch frequency with and without rotated C-shaped slot are shown in Figures 3 and 5(a),
respectively. It can be observed at 5.5 GHz that the current intensity is comparatively higher
at the inner and outer edges of the rotated C-shaped slot than the other parts of the planar
monopoles (P1 and P2). This leads to interference suppression at the notch frequency, which
in turn reduces the gain of the antenna at WLAN notch band.

2.2.  Effect of modified Minkowski fractal defected ground structure

Fractal structures are self similar iterative structures with space filling properties. Hence it can
produce an increase in length and widen the surface area in a limited space [13]. There is a
strong mutual coupling among the antenna elements P1 and P2 when they are close to each
other, which in turn leads to poor isolation of 10 dB. Therefore, a modified Minkowski fractal
defected ground structure has been implemented to obtain high isolation between the two
antenna elements (P1 and P2) and to ensure the compactness of the proposed MIMO antenna.
The fractal defected ground structure is a modification of the Minkowski island curve stud-
ied in [15,28]. The first two iterations of the Minkowski Island curve are shown in Figure 1(c).
 8   J. BANERJEE ET AL.

For construction of Minkowski curve fractals, one can initiate with a line segment of finite
length l. This initial line segment is called the initiator and is divided into three equal parts
each of length l/3. The Minkowski island curve, the middle line segment is replaced by two
horizontal and vertical segments of equal lengths which are optimized later for providing
compactness to the antenna structure. As depicted in Figure 1(d) the geometry of the pro-
posed modfied Minkowski fractal defected ground structure consists of the above-mentioned
iterations except the second iteration taking place at the top of the fractal curve and the length
of vertical line segment which is optimized to l2 (where, l2 = l − 0.5 mm) for providing com-
pactness to the antenna hence, the name “modified” Minkowski fractal defected ground struc-
ture has been suggested instead of Minkowski fractal defected ground structure. The idea
behind using such modified geometry is to improve the isolation between the antenna ele-
ments by implementing the space filling property of fractal geometry, a feature that translates
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into reduced antenna physical size with high isolation (reduced correlation).
Mutual coupling between adjacent radiating elements introduces unwanted features in
the radiation pattern due to the introduction of surface waves. So, there is a requirement
for additional isolation structure especially where strong current on the ground plane is the
main cause of mutual coupling. The stop band property of the fractal DGS can be useful for
controlling the surface waves, when inserted between closely spaced radiators [32]. It can
be easily observed from Figure 5(b) that in presence of the fractal Minkowski defected ground
structure (DGS) current is trapped around the fractal defect (due to the enhancement of
electrical length) and cannot flow to the neighboring radiator. This greatly helps to reduce
the mutual coupling between the closely spaced antennas. It is evident from Figure 4 that
the value of │S21│ reduces to less than −23.95 dB for most of the UWB bandwidth after the
application of fractal defect in the ground structure. Moreover, the impedance bandwidth
of the antenna ranges from 4 GHz instead of 3.1 GHz. This aspect is resolved by the addition
of rectangular slots in the ground plane as discussed further in section 2.3. It can be easily
seen from Figure 4 that the mutual coupling between the antenna elements is highest
around 7 GHz.
Figure 5(b) clearly shows the simulated surface current distributions on the antenna with
the modified Minkowski fractal defect. It can be clearly observed that at 7 GHz the current
is concentrated around the modified Minkowski defect in the ground structure which helps
in improving the isolation between the antenna elements (due to the trapping of surface
current as a consequence of increased electrical length of the ground structure).

2.3.  Effects of rectangular slots on the ground plane and rectangular strips at the
back side of the antenna
2.3.1.  Rectangular slots on the ground plane
The rectangular slots etched on the ground structures of the UWB MIMO antenna as shown
in Figure 2(c) have two main functions: providing a band notch at Wi-Max (3.3–3.7 GHz) and
C-Band (3.7–4.2 GHz), as well as enhancing the lower impedance bandwidth from 4 to
3.1 GHz. It can be observed from Figure 3 that the application of the rectangular slots in the
respective ground structures generates a sharp resonance at 3.25 GHz which results in effec-
tively improving the impedance bandwidth at the lower frequency of operation. Note that
due to symmetrical structure of the antenna, │S22│ and │S12│are same as │S11│ and │S21│,
 JOURNAL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND APPLICATIONS   9

respectively. The dimensions of the rectangular slots are decided by the following equations
provided below [18]:
c
Lnotch = √ (2)
2fnotch 𝜀eff

𝜀r + 1
where, 𝜀eff = (3)
2
The overall area of each slot is given by R1 × R2. The notch is a resonant structure and its
length at its resonant frequency (fnotch = 3.725 GHz) is given by (2). The calculated length of
the rectangular slot using (2) is 24.5 mm, whereas actual length of the rectangular slot in
the ground plane is 24.34 mm, which is close to the calculated length.
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It can be observed from the parametric studies carried out in Figure 6 (a) and (b) that
increasing the length of the rectangular slots lead to a shift in the resonant frequency from
3.5 to 3.25 GHz. At the same time, decreasing the length of the rectangular slots leads to the
shift of resonant frequency to 3.75 GHz thereby leading to inadequate notching of the entire
Wi-Max and C-Band, respectively.
It can be also observed that increasing the width of the rectangular slots shifts the UWB
lower cutoff frequency from 3.10 to 2.66 GHz enhancing lower UWB bandwidth. On the
other hand, Figure 6(b) also depicts that on decreasing the width of the rectangular slots
the bandwidth of the notch bands decreases.
It can be concluded that the physical length and width (R1 and R2) of the rectangular slots
should be adjusted during the process of parameter optimization; otherwise, the corre-
sponding notch frequencies and the resonant frequency of the antenna will shift due to the
presence of isolation structure (fractal defect in the common ground plane).
The ground plane loaded with rectangular slots makes the lower resonant frequencies
shift to the left as shown in Figure 3. In monopole arrays commonly used in MIMO applica-
tions, it is desired to have a compact antenna size. However, a reduction in the size of the
ground plane (due to the application of Minkowski fractal DGS) degrades the lower frequency

Figure 6. Parametric study of the length and width variations of the rectangular slots on the ground plane.
(a) Variation of VSWR with the length of the rectangular slots in the ground plane, (b) Variation of VSWR
with the width of the rectangular slots in the ground plane.
 10   J. BANERJEE ET AL.

response of the monopole [33]. This aspect is improved by introducing two rectangular slots
on the respective ground structures as shown in Figure 2(c). It is relevant to note that the
newly introduced rectangular slot hardly affects the high frequency response of the MIMO
antenna. The rectangular slot is aimed to obtain resonant modes at 3.25/3.7 GHz which
causes shift in resonance and band notching affects as depicted by Figure 3. To further
elaborate the role of rectangular slots on the ground structure the simulated surface current
distribution at 3.5 GHz is presented in Figure 5(c). The presence of rectangular slots on the
ground structure actually perturbs the current distribution in the ground plane of the pro-
posed antenna and thus modifies the equivalent parameters over the defected region [30].
This is where the band notching and bandwidth enhancement characteristics are
produced.
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2.3.2.  Rectangular strips behind the antenna

The proposed UWB MIMO antenna consists of two planar monopoles P1 and P2 with strong
mutual coupling between them because of their proximity. This in turn leads to reduction
in isolation between the antenna elements. It can be observed from Figure 4 that the │S21│,
around the higher end of the UWB spectrum (at 7.5 GHz and above) is greater than −15 dB
without the parallel strips. This implies high coupling of electromagnetic energy among the
planar monopoles. To prevent this coupling, two parallel rectangular strips are introduced
behind the ground plane as depicted in Figure 2(c). The simulated surface current distribution
at 8.1 GHz with the application of parallel strips is shown in Figure 5(d). When port 1 is excited
and port 2 is terminated by a 50 Ω load, a reduction in the mutual coupling between the
antenna elements was observed clearly. This is because the strips act as reflectors and pro-
hibits electromagnetic coupling among the planar monopoles [18,23,35]. However, due to
symmetry only the response for port 1 is provided and the response for port 2 is omitted.

3.  Results and discussion

Both the simulation and measurement results have been employed to study the performance
of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna. The simulated and measured S11 and S21 of the pro-
posed MIMO antenna are provided in Figure 7(a) and (b), respectively, for comparative study.
The measurement of return loss characteristics is carried out using Rhode and Schwarz ZVA
40 vector network analyzer.
It can be clearly observed from Figure 7(a) and (b) that, the measured operating band-
width ranges from 3.1 to 11.5 GHz excluding the 3.5 GHz (Wi-Max), 3.95 GHz (C-band) and
5.5 GHz (WLAN) bands. However, some discrepancies between the simulation and meas-
urement results are observed because of soldering, losses due to SMA connectors, and fab-
rication tolerances.
Isolation for the proposed UWB MIMO antenna exceeds 15 dB for the entire UWB band-
width. On the other hand, Figure 7(b) depicts that the │S21│ is below −23.95 dB for most of
the UWB band, excluding the lower edges of the FCC UWB band where the value reduces
to −17.5 dB (<−15 dB). Also the fabricated prototype of the proposed antenna is presented
in Figure 7(c) and (d), respectively. The simulation and measurement results show good
resemblance.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND APPLICATIONS   11
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Figure 7. Comparison between meaurement and simulation results. (a) S11, (b) S21, (c) fabricated prototype
of the proposed antenna (front view), (d) fabricated prototype of the proposed antenna (back view).

The antenna radiation patterns at 3.3, 4.52, and 10.14 GHz have been observed in two
planes i.e. y–z (E) plane and x–z (H) plane which are depicted in Figure 8(a) and (b), respec-
tively. It is evident that achieving a pure omni-directional radiation pattern over the complete
UWB band is a challenging task. However, the measured results show that the antenna
radiates quasi omni-directionally at the measured frequencies. Overall radiation pattern is
relatively stable across the UWB operational frequency range, and the gain shows marginal
variation.
In addition, the simulated and measured realized gain variations from 3 to 11.5 GHz are
plotted in Figure 9(a). Due to symmetry of the antenna structure and their common fabri-
cation tolerances, the realized gain values of the two radiators are almost similar in nature.
Therefore the gain of only P1 is presented, while antenna P2 is terminated with a 50 Ω matched
load. The measured and computed realized gain varies between 1.13 and 3.88 dBi excluding
the sharp variations at the notch bands. Later, simulated & measured radiation efficiency
curves are plotted in Figure 9(b) which clearly depicts that the radiation efficiency is greater
than 75% for the entire UWB bandwidth. It can also be observed from Figure 9(a) and (b)
that the gain and radiation efficiency are stable within the UWB range. However, a dramatic
decrease in the gain and radiation efficiency is clearly observed at the notch bands depicting
effective interference suppression.
 12   J. BANERJEE ET AL.
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Figure 8. Simulated and Measured Radiation patterns of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna at 3.3, 4.52,and
10.14 GHz. (a) E- plane (y–z) plane, (b) H-plane (x–z plane).

One of the fundamental requirements for antenna elements to be effectively utilized in

pattern diversity is that their radiation patterns should be uncorrelated. The parameter used
to evaluate correlation between radiation patterns is the envelope correlation coefficient
(ECC) (ρe). For MIMO application, the ECC can be either computed using the far field radiation
pattern [36] or scattering parameter methodology [37]. The ECC parameter should be pref-
erably computed from the 3D far field radiation pattern measurements but it becomes tedi-
ous and complicated. Consequently, S-parameter based ECC computations are preferred.
According to [38], the ECC ρe can be calculated from S-parameter using the following
equation:

| |
| |
| ∗ ∗
S11 S12 + S21 S22 |
| |
𝜌e = | ( √
|
)(√ )|
| (4)
| 2 2 2 2
| 1 − ||S11 || − ||S21 || . 1 − ||S22 || − ||S12 || ||
| |

Under normal operating conditions, the value of ECC, less than 0.5 represents accepted
threshold level of signal distortion [28]. It can be observed from Figure 9(c) that due to the
effectiveness of the proposed antenna the simulated as well as measured values of the ECC
are less than 0.0048 throughout the ultrawide bandwidth excluding the notch bands. The
obtained value of ECC is well below the practical threshold value of 0.5.
The diversity gain (DG) is the figure of merit which is used to quantitatively evaluate the
performance level of various diversity techniques. Figure 9(d) depicts the simulated diversity
gain which is computed using (5) and is found greater than 9.99 dB over the entire UWB
spectrum except at the Wi-Max (3.3–3.7 GHz) and C-band where a sharp decrease in the gain
is observed.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND APPLICATIONS   13
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Figure 9. Simulated & measured. (a) realized gain, (b) radiation efficiency, (c) ECC, (d) Simulated Diversity
gain of the proposed antenna.

Table 2. The comparisons between the proposed antenna and the previously reported UWB MIMO an-
tennas.
Antenna overall size
References (mm2) Bandwidth (GHz) Isolation (dB) ECC No. of bands notched
[16] 30 × 40 = 1200 3.1–10.6 >15 <0.05 Two
[18] 48 × 48 = 2304 2.5–12 >15 <0.005 One
[23] 35 × 40 = 1400 3.1–10.6 >16 <0.01 None
[25] 80 × 43 = 3440 3–12 >15 <0.5 None
[26] 42 × 24 = 1008 3.1–10.9 >15 <0.5 None
[27] 26 × 40 = 1040 3.1–10.6 >15 <0.2 None
[28] 45 × 45 = 2025 2–10.6 >17 <0.5 One
This work 26.75 × 41.5 = 1110.12 3.1–11.5 >19 <0.01 Three

√
DG = 10 1 − ||𝜌e ||
2
(5)

The measured value of ECC and DG using S-parameter approach are found to be less than
0.0048 and greater than 9.99 dB, respectively. To highlight the novelty of the proposed work,
 14   J. BANERJEE ET AL.

a comparison between the proposed antenna and the previously reported UWB MIMO anten-
nas is listed in Table 2.

4. Conclusion
A compact printed triple band-notched UWB MIMO antenna with high isolation and
enhanced bandwidth has been presented and analyzed for portable UWB applications. The
proposed antenna has an operational impedance bandwidth for │S11│ ≤ −10 dB ranging
from 3.1 to 11.5 GHz (VSWR ≤ 2) excluding three rejection bands: 3.3–3.7, 3.7–4.2, and 5.15–
5.85 GHz. The simulated and measured results show good resemblance and have shown
that the antenna has high isolation of >15 dB over the entire UWB operational bandwidth.
The focus of this design is to develop a compact printed UWB MIMO antenna covering the
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 19:37 01 August 2017

entire UWB bandwidth, improving isolation between the antenna elements, and providing
interference suppression at the Wi-Max, C-Band and WLAN band, respectively. The proposed
antenna shows good diversity performance as the ECC ≤ 0.0048 for the entire UWB band-
width. The computed and measured gain variations are stable over the entire UWB range,
except at the notch frequencies. All the simulated and measured results depict that the
proposed UWB MIMO antenna is a good candidate for portable UWB as well as UWB MIMO
systems.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Jeet Banerjee   http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6084-442X

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