URSI RCRS 2020, IIT (BHU), Varanasi, India, 12 - 14 February, 2020
Dual-Band MIMO Antenna for WLAN and X-band with High Isolation using CRDN
Harsh VerdhanSingh(1), and ShrivishalTripathi(1)
(1) Department of Electronics and Communication, Dr. SPM International
Institute of Information Technology, Naya Raipur, CG, India, 493661, https://www.iiitnr.ac.in
Abstract
In this paper, a compact dual-band multi-input-multi-
output (MIMO) antenna with high isolation using CRDN
(coupled resonator decoupling network) is presented. The
proposed work consists of two resonators with a stepped-
impedance transformer and a section of reference
impedance with CRDN. The compact Dual-band MIMO
antenna has a dimension of 60 × 40 ×1.6 mm3. The dual-
band MIMO antenna is operating in the frequency range
of 4.9-5.4GHz and 8.45-9.02GHz with high isolation. The
diversity performance envelops correlation coefficient
(ECC) and diversity gain (DG) of the antenna is less than
0.03 and more than 9.85, respectively. The result
indorsing the presented work is suitable for WLAN and
X-band applications.
1. Introduction
In this era of advancement of multi-standard wireless
communication, the multiband antenna have become a
necessary requirement of mobile/portable devices, due to
limited space. These portable devices include various
multimode LTE, Wi-Fi, WLAN, GSM, UMTS
smartphone, mobile routers, GPS, etc. Apparently, future
mobile communication like 4G and 5G wireless
technologies make use of MIMO (multiple-input
multiple-output) antennas to facilitate the spatial
multiplexing to enhance the throughput, channel capacity,
as well as data rate [1]. The two most important features
of design challenges in MIMO antenna system are to
reduce the antenna footprint for small portable devices
and improve the isolation among the elements in the close
vicinity.
In recent years, some of MIMO antenna designs were
proposed to improve the isolation in a compact
dimension. In [2], a dual-band separate U-shaped patch
antenna with a filtering multistub microstrip feed line is
presented, which utilized three inter digital shortened
lines to improve isolation. A dual-band dual-port MIMO
slot antenna operating in the 2.4/5GHz with a slot
arrangement to enhance the isolation is discussed where
two single-band antennas operating at 5-GHz are joint
together [3]. In [4], a folded monopole and a beveled
metal patch used for multiple resonant and neutralizing
lines connecting radiating elements to reduce the reactive
coupling and improve the isolation among elements. A 3D
hexagonal structure substrate integrated with magneto-
electric dipole antenna and metasurface is presented for
the 5G/WiMAX/WLAN/X-Band MIMO applications [5].
In [6], the MIMO antenna design for the X-band range is
proposed using EBG (Electronic Band Gap) for isolation
improvement. The two-element MIMO dielectric
resonator antenna (DRA) with an air gap to obtained good
isolation characteristics is presented in [7]. However, the
isolation between elements is still poor, which needs to be
improved in a given compact dimension and most of this
techniques is based upon the designer intuition. In recent
years, a concept of CRDN is proposed for single-band and
multi-band decoupling, to have improved isolation in a
compact dimension [8]-[10].
In this paper, we proposed a simple matching network
along with CRDN to improve impedance bandwidth as
well as isolation between dual-band antenna elements.
The proposed dual-band matching network provides good
impedance bandwidth in both the bands of the MIMO
antenna. Moreover, to improve the isolation further a
simple dual-band CRDN structure is introduced in the
design. The proposed MIMO antenna is resonating at
5.2GHz (WLAN) and 8.74GHz (X-band) bands with good
antenna characteristics.
2. Design Theory
2.1 Matching and Decoupling Condition
The closely spaced dual-band antennas with dual-band
matching networks can be described by a two-port
network. The combined admittance matrix of the network
[YA] with complex values is shown in Fig. 1. The dual-
band shunt CRDN is connected to an antenna whose
admittance matrix is represented as [YD]. The total
admittance matrix of the structure is represented as [10]:
𝑌 (𝜔) 𝑌 (𝜔)
𝑌=
𝑌 (𝜔) 𝑌 (𝜔)
𝑌 (𝜔) + 𝑌 (𝜔) 𝑌 (𝜔) + 𝑌 (𝜔)
𝑌= (1)
𝑌 (𝜔) + 𝑌 (𝜔) 𝑌 (𝜔) + 𝑌 (𝜔)
Where ω is the angular frequency.
Figure 1.Circuit model of dual-band CRDN in shunt with
a coupled antenna network together with a matching
network.
The admittance parameter of dual-band decoupling Figure 2. Proposed Dual-Band MIMO Antenna.
condition can be written as [10] for each resonating band
frequency range: 3. Proposed Dual-Band MIMO Antenna

𝑅𝑒{𝑌 (𝜔)} ≈ 0 (2a) The proposed MIMO antenna is considered using FR4
𝑗. 𝐼𝑚{𝑌 (𝜔)} + 𝑌 (𝜔) ≈ 0 (2b) epoxy substrate of dimension 40×60×1.6mm3 and
dielectric constant εr=4.3. In the proposed design two
The dual-band matching condition for each resonating second-order coupled-resonator filter is inserted between
band frequency range can be written as [10]: MIMO antennas as shown in Fig. 2. So that decoupling is
achieved by minimizing coupling current between the
antennas. In the proposed work two closely spaced
𝑅𝑒{𝑌 (𝜔)} ≈ 1 (3a)
antennas is decoupled using simple CRDN structure. In
𝑗. 𝐼𝑚{𝑌 (𝜔)} + 𝑌 (𝜔) ≈ 0 (3b)
this design process, matching network after that CRDN
for different bands have been introduced systematically to
Where ω is the angular frequency in between lower and
mitigate the short comes in the initial design. The various
higher frequency range, and k=1, 2. In the above cases,
optimized dimension of the proposed MIMO antenna
CRDN is considered a lossless passive network.
structure is summarized in Table I.
2.2 Matching Network for Dual-Band Table I. Proposed Dual-Band MIMO Antenna Dimension
(mm)
The impedance matching is achieved by keeping the real
part of both resonators same and keep the imaginary part Name Size Name Size Name Size
approaching to zero in both the frequency band. In the l 60 l1 32.55 l2 25.5
proposed design the admittance parameter of the initial
w 40 w1 3 w2 1
antenna is improved using one section of a stepped-
impedance transformer and another section of reference l3 6 l4 3 l5 6
impedance to improve the resonance in the higher w3 1.5 l6 2.4 l7 2.25
frequency band. l8 9 w4 2

2.3 Proposed Dual-Band CRDN

The coupled-resonator filter characteristics can be utilized
for CRDN design because of their common features using
admittance parameters [10]. The designing of decoupling
network using admittance parameters by obligatory
conditions presented in equation (2) and (3) [8]. The
network model of dual-band CRDN is presented in Fig. 1.
The coupling coefficient m12 and m34 are operative for
lower and higher frequency bands, respectively, which
can be calculated using nodal circuit analysis [10]. The Figure 3. Systematic design iteration of the dual-band
mS1 and mS3 is coupling coefficient from source to MIMO antenna (a) Initial MIMO Antenna, (b) MIMO
resonator at different frequency bands and m2L and m4L is antenna with matching circuit, (c) antenna with CRDN for
coupling coefficient from the resonator to load at different lower frequency band, and (d) antenna with CRDN for the
frequency bands. higher frequency band.

Figure 4.S-parameter results of the initial MIMO antenna.
Figure 5. S-parameter results of MIMO antenna with
matching circuit.
Figure 6. S-parameter results of MIMO antenna with
CRDN at lower frequency band.
Figure 7. S-parameter results of MIMO antenna with
CRDN at higher frequency band.
The MIMO antenna design evolution is presented in Fig.
3. The initial MIMO antenna structure is shown in Fig.
3(a). This antenna structure offer dual-band resonance at
WLAN and X-band frequencies, within bands S11 is better
than -10dB at the frequency band of 5.05-5.8GHz and
8.24-9.5 GHz and isolation is ˃9dB and ˃11.5dB,
respectively, as shown in Fig. 4. The inter-element
separation between antennas is 9.4mm. However, the S11
response at the higher frequency band is diffident. To
improve the S11 further matching circuit is introduced in
the second iteration of the design. These matching circuits
ensure good S11 performance in the higher frequency band
as presented in Fig. 5.
The third design consists of CRDN structure which helps
to improve the isolation in lower frequency range as
shown in Fig. 3(c). The S-parameter of this structure is
presented in Fig. 6. The fourth iterations of design is
presented in Fig. 3(d), a separate CRDN structure is
introduced in the design for improving isolation at higher
frequency bands, its S-parameter performance is given
away in Fig. 7. The combined structure of Fig. 3(c) and
Fig. 3(d) is shown in Fig. 2, as optimized one; which
provides dual-band resonance with improved high
isolation as shown in Fig. 8.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 S-parameters
The presented MIMO antenna is S-parameter performance
is as shown in Fig. 8. The proposed MIMO antenna is
resonating in the bands of 4.9-5.4GHz and 8.45-9.02GHz,
with a bandwidth around 500 MHz. The isolation of the
MIMO antenna is more than 18dB in the lower frequency
band and more than 20 dB in the higher frequency band.
4.2 Radiation characteristics
The polar plot of the proposed dual-band MIMO antenna
is shown in Fig 9. The E-plane and H-plane radiation are
calculated at 5.2 GHz and 8.74 GHz central frequencies.
The polar plot presents distorted dumbbell shape
characteristics.
Figure 8.S-parameter results of the proposed dual-band
MIMO antenna.
Figure 9. Polar plot of the proposed dual-band MIMO
antenna.

Figure 10. Diversity Performance of proposed dual-band
MIMO antenna.
4.3 Diversity performance
This proposed dual-band MIMO antenna is having decent
diversity characteristics. The proposed MIMO antenna
envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) and diversity gain
(DG) are shown in Figure 10. The ECC is less than 0.02
at the lower band and less than 0.03 at a higher band,
which is well below than threshold values [11]. It is
evaluated by using equation 4, as given in [11].
2
E1 , E1 , d
 (4)

4
 E1 ,  d E 2 ,  d
2 2
4 4
Where, Ei(θ,ϕ) is the complex 3-D radiated field pattern
for antenna i=1 or 2.
The diversity gain of the proposed dual-band MIMO
antenna is greater than 9.95 in the lower frequency range
and greater than 9.85 at the higher frequency band as
shown in Fig. 10. The diversity gain is calculated by using
equation 5 as presented in [11].
G  10 1  
2
(5)
5. Conclusion
In this paper, dual-band second-order CRDN is used to
improve the isolation between the closely spaced MIMO
antenna elements. The systematic design approach is
discussed to achieve good isolation performance. In the
design, matching circuits are introduced to improve the
S11 of the design. After that second-order CRDN is
introduced to improve the isolation between MIMO
antennas. The presented dual-band MIMO antenna
resonates in the band of 4.9-5.4GHz and 8.45-9.02GHz,
with isolation ˃18dB and ˃21dB, respectively. The
diversity performance ECC is less than 0.02 in the lower
band and less than 0.03 in the higher band. DG is greater
than 9.95 in the lower frequency range and greater than
9.85 at a higher frequency band. The proposed MIMO
antenna is offering good return loss, isolation, ECC and
diversity performance.
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