1552 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO.
8, AUGUST 2019
FSS-Based Spatially Decoupled Back-to-Back
Four-Port MIMO DRA With Multidirectional
Pattern Diversity
Gourab Das , Nikesh Kumar Sahu, Anand Sharma , Student Member, IEEE,
Ravi Kumar Gangwar , Member, IEEE, and Mohammad S. Sharawi , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This letter presents a frequency selective surface
(FSS)-based four-port multiple-input–multiple-output cylindrical
dielectric resonator antenna (cDRA) system that supports multi-
directional pattern diversity characteristics. The back-to-back ar-
rangements of the cDRA as well as the use of an FSS are some of
the features of the proposed antenna design. The cDRAs are posi-
tioned over a substrate through a common ground plane. The top
side has two oppositely faced cDRAs that are excited with the help
of ports-1 and 2, via coplanar waveguide-fed conformal striplines.
Similar cDRA orientations also exist at the bottom side and are ex-
cited by microstrip-line-fed conformal striplines through ports-3
and 4, respectively. To improve isolation and correlation, similar
phase-gradient FSSs are placed at the two sides of the substrate.
As a result, four diverse radiation patterns are obtained from four
ports, which ensure multidirectional pattern diversity characteris-
tics of the proposed antenna. The proposed technique offers more
than 10 dB and 75% improvement in isolation and correlation
values, respectively. By observing the measured results, it is con-
firmed that the proposed structure is useful for WLAN access point
(5.15–5.35 GHz) applications.
Index Terms—Frequency selective surface (FSS), isolation,
multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO), multiport, WLAN.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE rapid development in wireless communication and
T technology demands superior data rates and reliability
within the limited spectrum. To satisfy these demands, the
multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) technology appeared
as an emerging technology that is utilized in several wireless
standards presently. This technology uses multiple antennas in
the transmitter and receiver sides in order to improve the link re-
liability, data rate, and channel capacity without the requirement
of extra power or spectrum [1].
In recent years, dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) re-
searchers have been engaged in designing MIMO antennas
for microwave and millimeter-wave frequency bands since
they have various advantages compared to the microstrip patch
Manuscript received May 14, 2019; accepted June 3, 2019. Date of publication
June 12, 2019; date of current version August 2, 2019. (Corresponding author:
Ravi Kumar Gangwar.)
G. Das, N. K. Sahu, A. Sharma, and R. K. Gangwar are with the De-
partment of Electronics Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian
School of Mines), Dhanbad 826004, India (e-mail: gourab.das@ece.ism.ac.
in; nikesh.sahu100@gmail.com; anand@ece.ism.ac.in; ravi.gangwar.ece07@
itbhu.ac.in).
M. S. Sharawi is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and the
Poly-Grames Research Center, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4,
Canada (e-mail: Mohammad.sharawi@polymtl.ca).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2922276
1536-1225 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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antenna like wider bandwidth, high radiation efficiency, high
gain, large power handing capability, etc., [2]. Several DRA-
based MIMO antennas appeared in literature [3]–[5]. Most of
these antennas used several isolation improvement techniques
like orthogonal mode generation [3], defected ground structure
[4], metallic strip or parasitic elements [5], or a combination of
more than one technique [6]. These works mainly concentrate on
port coupling enhancement between the antenna elements. Most
of these works used the S-parameter-based expression in [7] for
an envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) calculation. However,
in the case of a DRA, it is known that it radiates due to the
excitation of a particular mode. Each dielectric resonator (DR)
mode has a specific field configuration. The mutual coupling
between two DRAs is mainly due to field coupling. In this way,
we can say that the majority of mutual coupling between DR-
based MIMO antennas is because of radiation pattern overlap.
This means that if we separate the radiation patterns spatially,
then mutual coupling between the antenna elements can be
reduced. However, literature shows that the S-parameter-based
expression is invalid for ECC calculations [8]. Thus, for the
ECC computation, the field-based expression gives actual value
since it accounts for the radiation pattern of different antenna el-
ements, which is evident in the original equation of the ECC [8].
Based on this phenomenon, a very few research works are
available in literature where radiation patterns are separated spa-
tially to improve mutual coupling as well as ECC [9]–[11]. These
show that the isolation and ECC values can be improved by
decorrelating the radiation pattern of antenna elements.
With these viewpoints, a four-port MIMO antenna is pro-
posed in this letter where antenna beams are separated spatially
to achieve high isolation and low correlation. To achieve this,
two phase-gradient frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) are used
and placed at both sides of the substrate as a superstrate. In the
proposed antenna, two cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas
(cDRAs) are positioned at top of the substrate, and another
two are placed at its bottom. With this special technique, the
antenna achieves more than 20 dB of isolation and excellent
ECC values (less than 0.1).
II. FORMATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA
In order to achieve tilted beams in complementary directions,
two phase-gradient FSSs, which act as partially reflecting sur-
faces (PRSs), are used. A Fabry–Perot cavity antenna is modeled
by placing the PRS at a certain distance from the antenna ele-
ment [12]. The PRS is a combination of the number of unit cells.
The geometry of a unit cell is shown in Fig. 1.
 DAS et al.: FSS-BASED SPATIALLY DECOUPLED BACK-TO-BACK FOUR-PORT MIMO DRA WITH MULTIDIRECTIONAL PATTERN DIVERSITY
Fig. 1. Configuration of unit cell. (a) Top view, (b) bottom view, and (c) side
view (P = 15.75 mm, S1 = 12.12 mm, S2 = 10.5 mm, R1 and R2 is variable).
Fig. 2. Magnitude and phase response of the proposed unit cell. (a) Magnitude
response. (b) Phase response.
Design and simulation of the proposed unit cell is accom-
plished using Ansoft HFSS by considering proper boundary
conditions. The proposed unit cell is a composite structure since
it consists of simultaneous inductive and capacitive grids. The
bottom side and top side consist of triangular patches and tri-
angular apertures, respectively, which are called capacitive and
inductive grids [13]. These two grids are printed on an FR4
substrate (εsub = 4.4) having 1.6 mm thickness. A PRS con-
sists of several unit cells, and the beam tilting can be done by
changing the reflection phase of the PRS [13]. The continuous
phase variation can be achieved in two ways, i.e., by changing
the dimension of capacitive grid or by changing the dimension
of the inductive grid [14]. The inductive grid varies by chang-
ing S1 and S2 values; similarly, the capacitive grid varies with
the changes of R1 and R2 . Here, the capacitive grid is varying
in order to achieve the continuous phase variation while having
a fixed inductive grid. Fig. 2 shows the magnitude and phase
variation of the proposed unit cell for different R1 and R2 val-
ues in between 5.15–5.35 GHz. It can be observed from Fig. 2
that the shift in resonant frequency is caused due to the change
in R1 and R2 values. The unit cell has different magnitude and
phase characteristics for different R1 and R2 values. The unit
cell of the PRS is selected in such a manner that there should
be continuous phase variation. With this reference, the PRS-1
is designed in such a way that the unit cell with a maximum
reflection magnitude (cell-1) is located at one side and the other
cells with gradually decreasing reflection magnitude are placed
towards the other side. Fig. 3(a) shows the top and bottom views
of PRS-1. It reveals that the top triangular aperture (inductive
grid) is the same for all the cells, but the bottom triangular patch
(capacitive grid) is varying to achieve continuous magnitude and
phase variation. PRS-1 consists of 2 × 4 unit cells.
In the proposed antenna structure, the antenna beams are tilted
in opposite directions. To achieve this, we have to create sym-
metric PRS so that symmetric beams will be formed in oppo-
site directions. We have to maintain the symmetricity in order
to achieve an equal-branch power ratio, otherwise the MIMO
performance will be degraded. To realize this phenomenon, the
proposed PRS is formed with the combination of two PRS-1 as
shown in Fig. 3(b). In the proposed PRS, the middle unit cell
(cell-1) is considered as a common cell. The dimensions of R1
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1553
Fig. 3. (a) Top view (left) and bottom view (right) of the proposed PRS-1.
(b) Configuration of the proposed PRS.
TABLE I
DIFFERENT UNIT CELL USED IN PRS
and R2 change continuously from a common unit cell (cell-1) to
the left direction or right direction. From Figs. 2 and 3(b), it can
be observed that the unit cell (cell-1) with a maximum reflection
magnitude value is placed at the center of the proposed PRS. The
other unit cells with gradually decreasing reflection magnitude
are placed towards the edge of the PRS. This means unit cell-
4 is placed at the edge of the PRS in both directions, since it
has the minimum reflection magnitude value. In this way, the
symmetry is achieved in the proposed PRS. To form the tilted
beam pattern, the magnitude and phase distribution is changed
by gradating the triangular patch. The difference between trian-
gular patch dimensions of neighboring sections is determined by
the gradation constant (ΔR). The dimensions of the triangular
patches are formed using [14]
(R2 )cell−i = R2 + i × ΔR2 (1)
(R1 )cell−i = R1 + i × ΔR1 (2)
where R2 and R1 are the triangular patch dimensions for the
reference unit cell (cell-1) and i represents the unit cell number.
For the proposed PRS, the gradation constants are selected as
0.45 and 0.52 for ΔR2 and ΔR1 , respectively.
Table I shows the magnitude and phase values of different unit
cells of the PRS at 5.25 GHz. Fig. 2 and Table I show that the
magnitude and phase values decrease as the size of the triangular
patch increases.
The design details of the four-port MIMO antenna cavity sys-
tem are shown in Fig. 4. Two cylindrical dielectric resonators
named DR-1 and 2 (εcDRA = 9.8) are placed at the top side of the
FR4 substrate (εr,sub = 4.4) as shown in Fig. 4. The cDRAs are
placed opposite to each other. Ports-1 and 2 consist of coplanar-
waveguide-fed based conformal striplines. DR-1 and 2 are ex-
cited with the help of ports-1 and 2, respectively. The proposed
2 × 7-cell-based PRS discussed in Section I, is positioned over
these two cDRAs and acts as a superstrate. The distance (T) be-
tween substrate and PRS is 0.26λ at 5.25 GHz. The proposed
PRS is placed in such a way that the unit cell, which has max-
imum reflection magnitude, is placed in between DR-1 and 2.
As a result, antenna beams are tilted in opposite directions [15].
The interelement distance between DR-1 and 2 should be main-
tained in such a way that each cDRA is excited in a broadside
 1554 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 8, AUGUST 2019

Fig. 4. Configuration of the proposed MIMO antenna. (a) Top view (3-D),
Fig. 5. Scattering parameters of the proposed antenna. (a) Reflection coeffi-
(b) bottom view (3-D), and (c) side view (different dimensions are: LS = WS
cient. (b) Isolation between the ports.
= 112, L1 = 15, HS = HPRS = 1.6, W1 = 2, P1 = 0.5, H1 = 5.5, S = 14,
L2 = 15, W2 = 2, H2 = 3.1, LPRS = 110, WPRS = 31.5, DU = DL = 14,
HU = HL = 8, T = 15 mm. All are in millimeters).

direction. The interelement spacing (S) between the top cDRAs

is kept as 14 mm, which is equal to 0.24λ at 5.25 GHz. This is the
minimum distance at which the top cDRAs are excited in broad-
side direction. The beam is deviated from broadside direction if
the distance is reduced, and a high mutual coupling is obtained
between the antenna elements. Another two oppositely faced
cDRAs, namely DR-3 and 4, are placed at the bottom side of
the substrate. They are excited through a microstrip-line-based
conformal stripline via ports-3 and 4, respectively. Ports-3 and
4 are employed orthogonally with respect to ports-1 and 2. As
a result, orthogonal modes are excited between top and bottom
DRAs. Similarly, another proposed PRS is placed at the bottom
side of the substrate, which acts as superstrate for DR-3 and
4 as shown in Fig. 4. The bottom PRS is placed orthogonally
with respect to the top PRS. The interelement distance between
bottom cDRAs is kept the same as the top ones.
The scattering parameters of the proposed four-port MIMO
antenna with and without PRS are shown in Fig. 5. It reveals
that, without PRS, the bandwidth of the proposed antenna for
each port is 7.5% (5.1–5.5 GHz). However, the bandwidth is
reduced to 3.5% (5.15–5.35 GHz) when the PRS is placed.
DR-(1 and 2) and DR-(3 and 4) are placed opposite to each
other, and the same mode is excited in the cDRA due to sim-
ilar feeding mechanism, i.e., the HE11δ mode. As a result, a
strong mutual coupling is generated in between ports-(1 and 2)
and ports-(3 and 4). The isolation response between the ports is
shown in Fig. 5. Without PRS, low isolation values (< 12 dB)
is observed between ports-(1, 2) and ports-(3, 4). However, no-
ticeably improved isolation response (> 25 dB) is observed be-
tween ports-(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), and (2, 4). The improvement
in isolation between these ports can be clarified by observing
the three-dimensional (3-D) polar plot of the antenna elements.
Fig. 6 shows 3-D polar plots without the PRS. It reveals that
DR-1 and 2 are excited in broadside direction (θ = 0° and φ =
0°) and, on the other hand, DR-3 and 4 are excited opposite of
broadside direction (θ = 180° and φ = 0°). Thus, their radiation
beams are separated spatially, as well as orthogonal modes are
Fig. 6. 3-D polar plots of the antenna without PRS at 5.3 GHz. (a) Port-1.
(b) Port-2. (c) Port-3. (d) Port-4.
Fig. 7. 3-D polar plots of the antenna with PRS at 5.25 GHz. (a) Ports-1 and
2. (b) Ports-3 and 4.
generated in between them. As a result, high isolation values
are observed. On the other hand, low isolation values are per-
ceived between ports-(1, 2) and ports-(3, 4) due to high overlap
of radiation beams.
With the addition of the PRS, the radiation beams of DR
elements are tilted from broadside direction. Fig. 7 shows the
3-D polar plots of the proposed antenna for different ports. It
can be observed that DR-1 and DR-2 are tilted towards −35°
and +35°, respectively, in xz plane. On the other hand, DR-3
and 4 are tilted to −145° and +145°, respectively, in yz plane.
Hence, each cDRA of the proposed antenna radiates in different
directions, which confirms the multidirectional characteristics of
the proposed antenna. As a result, the isolation between ports-
(1, 2) and ports-(3, 4) is improved by 10–12 dB. Fig. 5 shows
that the isolation level between ports-(1, 2) and ports-(3, 4) is
12 dB without PRS, but after adding the PRS, the isolation level
between these ports is better than 20 dB. Thus, the proposed
PRS directly shows the effectiveness of this method. However,
we observed introduction of some sidelobe level in the PRS case.

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 DAS et al.: FSS-BASED SPATIALLY DECOUPLED BACK-TO-BACK FOUR-PORT MIMO DRA WITH MULTIDIRECTIONAL PATTERN DIVERSITY 1555

Fig. 8. Fabricated antenna structure. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view.

Fig. 10. Radiation patterns of the proposed antenna. (a) Port-1 (xz plane).
(b) Port-2 (xz plane). (c) Port-3 (yz plane). (d) Port-4 (yz plane).

Fig. 9. Measured scattering parameters of the proposed antenna. (a) Reflection

coefficient. (b) Isolation variation. Fig. 11. ECC of the proposed antenna.

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS TABLE II

PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA WITH
The fabricated four-port MIMO antenna is shown in Fig. 8. To OTHER ANTENNAS
accommodate the PRS in both sides of the substrate, polystyrene
foam materials (εr < 1.05) are used at the corner.
The measured scattering parameters of the proposed antenna
are shown in Fig. 9. Fig. 9(a) shows that the proposed structure
covers the frequency range between 5.15–5.42 GHz for all the
ports. Fig. 9(b) also shows the measured isolation response of
the proposed antenna between different ports. It shows more
than 20 dB of isolation between all the ports.
The simulated and measured radiation patterns of the pro-
posed structure for different ports are shown in Fig. 10. Fig. 10
shows that the radiation pattern of each DR element is separated
spatially. The beam maxima of ports-1 and 2 are tilted to –35° and radiation efficiency of the proposed antenna are 4.9 dB, 89%
and +35°, respectively, in xz plane. On the other hand, the max- and 7.2 dB, 81% without and with PRS, respectively. Table II
imum beam directions of ports-3 and 4 are at −145° and 145°, shows the performance comparison of the presented structure
respectively, in yz plane. This phenomenon is also explained by with other DRA-based MIMO antennas. It reveals that the pro-
observing the 3-D polar plot of the antenna explained in Fig. 7. posed antenna gives an improved isolation level with excellent
The ECC curves of the proposed MIMO antenna with and ECC values.
without PRS are shown in Fig. 11 between ports-(1 and 2) and
(3 and 4). This MIMO performance parameter is calculated by
IV. CONCLUSION
using the complex far-field pattern discussed in [16]. It reveals
that without and with PRS the ECC value is 0.31 and 0.10, re- In this letter, a spatially decoupled four-port MIMO antenna
spectively, at 5.25 GHz. Thus, this PRS provides more than 75% is presented for WLAN applications. An improvement of 10 dB
improvement in ECC values between the ports. The proposed of isolation and 75% in ECC is achieved by using two back-to-
technique is used not only to improve the isolation, but it also im- back PRS. The presented structure is useful for WLAN (5.15–
proves the ECC values between the antenna elements. The gain 5.35 GHz) applications.

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 1556 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 8, AUGUST 2019
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