See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/280877183

MIMO antennas

Chapter · August 2015

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8645-8

CITATIONS READS

0 1,429

2 authors:

Mohammad S. Sharawi Eva Rajo-Iglesias

Polytechnique Montréal University Carlos III de Madrid
307 PUBLICATIONS   1,869 CITATIONS    198 PUBLICATIONS   2,980 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Miniaturized directional MIMO antennas for 4G/5G View project

Miniaturized Antennas for ALL applications. View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Mohammad S. Sharawi on 10 September 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Wideband, Multiband,
and Smart Reconfigurable
Antennas for Modern
Wireless Communications

Mohammad A. Matin
Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei Darussalam
Managing Director: Lindsay Johnston
Managing Editor: Keith Greenberg
Director of Intellectual Property & Contracts: Jan Travers
Acquisitions Editor: Kayla Wolfe
Production Editor: Christina Henning
Development Editor: Rachel Ginder
Typesetter: Amanda Smith; Kaitlyn Kulp
Cover Design: Jason Mull

Published in the United States of America by

Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
701 E. Chocolate Avenue
Hershey PA 17033
Tel: 717-533-8845
Fax: 717-533-8661
E-mail: cust@igi-global.com
Web site: http://www.igi-global.com

Copyright © 2016 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, without written permission from the publisher.
Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the
names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the
trademark or registered trademark.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wideband, multiband, and smart reconfigurable antennas for modern wireless communications /
Mohammad A. Matin, editor.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4666-8645-8 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-8646-5 (ebook) 1. Adaptive antennas.
2. Wireless communication systems--Equipment and supplies. 3. Cell phone systems--Equipment
and supplies. I. Matin, Mohammad A., 1977-
TK7871.67.A33W53 2016
621.3841’35--dc23
2015015762

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in
this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
 145

Chapter 5
MIMO Antennas
Eva Rajo-Iglesias
Carlos III University, Spain

Mohammad S. Sharawi
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology has appeared to overcome the
data throughput limit faced by conventional Single-Input-Single-Output (SISO) wire-
less communication systems. In MIMO, a significant increase in the data through-
put is obtained using multiple data streams sent and received by multiple antenna
elements on the transmitter and receiver ends, and this is why fourth generation
(4G) wireless systems are supporting more real time multimedia applications and
videos compared to older generations. The design of MIMO antenna systems is
not a trivial task, and needs careful design practices. Several performance metrics
have been identified for MIMO antenna systems that need to be evaluated on top
of the conventional single element antenna systems. In this chapter, we will start
by giving a brief background on wireless systems evolution and then highlighting
the advantages of MIMO technology and its use in current 4G and future 5G wire-
less communication standards. The second section will treat in detail the various
performance metrics that are needed to evaluate the behavior of a MIMO antenna
system. The new metrics that are required for MIMO performance characterization
such as the total active reflection coefficient (TARC) for multi-port antenna systems,
correlation coefficient, diversity gain and channel capacity evaluation will be dis-
cussed in details. Several examples of single-band and Multi-band MIMO antenna
systems are considered next with various types of antenna elements and covering a
variety of wireless applications and device sizes. The chapter ends with a discussion
on some of the challenges encountered in the design of MIMO antennas.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8645-8.ch005

Copyright ©2016, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
 MIMO Antennas

I. INTRODUCTION

Wireless communications has seen a quantum leap in the past two decades. The
wireless age where you can talk, browse the internet, and play high definition games
on your phone has become a reality. Smart phones nowadays have the computing
power of a PC two decades ago if not even beating it. Tremendous technological
advancements have taken place and now we cannot even imagine how our lives
would be like without high speed internet and being always connected via portable
and wireless smart phones and devices.
The wireless revolution has taken several steps and evolved with the advance-
ments in technology and wireless standards and algorithms. The push was first for
having reliable portable wireless devices, then size reduction came into play, and then
multi-standard support and multi-band operation, and finally the push for higher data
rates that exceed the theoretical limits set for single channel communication systems.
The need for higher data rates to support high definition video and online gaming,
as well as multi-application support is a driving technology demand that is always
on the rise. The step from third generation (3G) to fourth generation (4G) wireless
technology in terms of higher achievable data rates was not possible without rely-
ing on multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology. In MIMO, multiple
data streams are sent from multiple antennas at the transmitter and are received by
multiple antennas at the receiver end. This has shown to provide a linear increase in
the data rates as a function of the number of the antennas used. Current 4G mobile
terminals are all equipped with MIMO antenna systems to provide the true high
data rate advantage anticipated.
In this chapter, we will start with a brief introduction about MIMO communica-
tion systems and their advantages, and then focus on MIMO antenna systems, their
performance metrics, challenges and some examples from various mobile terminal
devices.

I.1 MIMO Advantages and Evolution

A MIMO based wireless communication system can be represented as shown in

Figure 1. MIMO systems can provide high data rate transmissions through spatial
multiplexing. In spatial multiplexing, the high data rate signal is split into several
lower rate streams. Each stream is passed to a different antenna for transmission.
Given that each stream will have a unique signature, the receiving antennas can
distinguish between the multiple streams and decode the data and receive a higher
data transmission rate. This requires high signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio levels.
Fourth generation wireless standards such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) have
a theoretical peak of 300 Mbps/20 MHz = 15 bits/Hz (with the use of MIMO ca-

146
MIMO Antennas

Figure 1. MIMO communication system high level diagram.

pability) which is 6 times higher than 3G based networks that has 3.1 Mbps/1.25
MHz = 2.5 bits/Hz (i.e. EV-DO). It will have a new air interface for its radio access
network (RAN) that is based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access
(OFDMA) (Garg, 2007)-(Boch, 2008). Of course this increase in the data rate is
not only due to MIMO technology, but a collection of enabling technologies such
as adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), multiple-input-multiple-output systems
(MIMO) and adaptive antenna arrays.
The Shannon-Hartley capacity theorem predicts that the capacity of the error
free channel for a single-input-single-output (SISO) system is given by:

C = B log2 (1 + SNR ) (1)

where C is the capacity in bits/second, B is the channel bandwidth and SNR is the
linear signal-to-noise ratio value. In a MIMO system, the cross-coupling between
the signals from the transmit antennas to the receive antennas introduces a path
dependency through the radio channel. This will impact the overall capacity of the
system as (Pedersen, Andersen, Kermoal, & Mogensen, 2000):

R
C = B log2 I + SNR (2)
k

where C is the channel capacity in bit/second, I is the identity matrix, R is the channel
and antenna correlation matrix, k is rank of R (i.e. number of transmit antennas). It
is evident from (2) that the cross-correlation between antennas should be minimized,
and we will discuss this further in coming sections.

147
 MIMO Antennas

The design of the MIMO antenna system is a challenge when we consider portable
and handheld user terminals. The fact that multiple antennas needs to be packaged
within a constrained volume and close to each other pose several issues, and can
significantly degrade the advantages that one anticipates from such a MIMO system.
In addition, transceiver design for MIMO systems and active MIMO antennas are
among the challenges for such multi-antenna systems (Mohammadi & Ghannouchi,
2012). This chapter will highlight some of the issues that might arise from such
dense packaging and how to avoid performance degradation between the antennas
of this MIMO antenna system.

I.2 From 4G to 5G Enabling Technologies

MIMO systems are key enabling technology in 4G wireless systems. They have
been shown to provide channel capacities that exceed the limits for single antenna
systems. This technology will be a key feature for 5G wireless system among many
others. It is anticipated that 5G systems will provide 1000 times the channel capacity
compared to those that were out there at 2010 with user data rates in the range of
Gbps everywhere. MIMO technology alone cannot provide such an increase, and
thus several other key technologies are currently investigated to achieve this multi-
fold increase in the data rates and channel capacity for next generation wireless
terminals (Cheng-Xiang et al., 2014).
The use of massive MIMO systems is one of the key technologies for 5G imple-
mentations. Massive MIMO architecture requires a very large amount of antennas
at the transmitter side (tens or hundreds) that are either co-located or distributed
within the area of coverage. This will provide much higher capacities compared
to current conventional MIMO where a couple of antennas are placed at the user
terminal and less than 10 are used at the base-station side. Massive MIMO systems
can significantly enhance the spectral efficiency and reduce the inter-cell interfer-
ence and fast fading (Rusek et al., 2013).
The use of denser multi-standard (multi-radio access technology – RAT) hetero-
geneous networks with large proliferation of smaller cells is a key to beyond 4G and
5G standards. Smaller cells are expected to cover more indoor cites, and thus will
enable greener communications through the use of less power at the user terminal
to transmit the signals to the close by cell rather that the conventional tower, and
the tower will rely of dedicated channels to communication with smaller cells rather
than multi-users are at time (smaller cells can accommodate multi-users). This will
provide faster access and lower latency as well.
Spatial modulation (SM) and full duplex (FD) communications among other
diversity transmissions are key to achieve the large increase in the channel capacity
anticipated. In SM, instead of simultaneously transmitting multiple data streams from

148
MIMO Antennas

the antenna array, this technique encodes part of the data onto the spatial position
of the antennas, thus providing a second constellation diagram that will increase the
data rate. This technique mitigates three issues that are found in conventional MIMO
systems, namely, inter-channel interference, synchronization between the antennas,
and the use of multiple RF chains (Renzo, Hass, Ghrayeb, Suguira & Hanzo, 2014).
Better and more efficient spectrum utilization is also important in 5G systems.
The use of cognitive radio (CR) systems for spectrum sensing and choosing the
appropriate channels for transmission is another technology to be deployed within
such architectures. In this domain, novel antenna designs are to be integrated with
MIMO systems to provide wide spectrum sensing that are backward compatible with
the current 4G and 3G systems that can go as low as 700 MHz in operation. The
design of such antenna systems is very challenging especially at the user terminal
side, where the size is a big constraint. Integration and coupling, as well as good
gain and efficiency are among the current challenges for designing antenna systems
for CR platforms and operation.
A major issue in current wireless standards is the lack of bandwidth for data
transmission. The current bands are so heavily used and congested that they can
offer no more room for any bandwidth enhancement. Although carrier aggregation
has been suggested to provide up to 100 MHz bands in LTE-A, achieving the Gbps
rates anywhere as per the 5G standard will require providing more bandwidth in
addition to the aforementioned technologies. A direct parameter in the channel
equation (Equations 1 and 2) is the bandwidth of the channel. Channel bandwidths
in the order of 1 GHz can be utilized at millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequencies.
Very recently, it has been demonstrated that mm-waves can be a viable solution for
providing very efficient short range communications at the 28 GHz and 38 GHz
frequency bands (Rappaport et al., 2013). This large bandwidth is more than 200
times that available at current cellular and mobile bands below 3GHz. This large
frequency band of operation can allow for on-chip integration of antenna arrays
that can mitigate the high path loss experienced at such high frequencies. This
technology is to be used for short communication ranges, and thus high throughput
and low latency will be experienced between the mobile terminal and the close by
access point. This is a very suitable indoors solution for 5G. Large and denser local
cells are expected for this architecture, and that is why the concept of heterogeneous
networks is very important.
Finally, device to device (D2D) communications will also contribute to the higher
data rates and low latency times anticipated for 5G. Exchanging data between local
devices will release some channels and lower the transmission and rely times, thus
providing more efficiency resource utilization and faster local data exchanges. In
addition, D2D can also aid in what is called distributed antenna arrays where a local-
ity of devices can act as a cooperative array that can communicate more effectively

149
 MIMO Antennas

Figure 2. 5G mobile handset features block diagram.

with the base-station, thus providing better service and higher spectral efficiency
(Talwar et al., 2014).
A generic block diagram of how these various technologies can be integrated
together within one platform is shown in Figure 2 (adopted and modified from
(Talwar et al., 2014)). A major part of this architecture is the multi-element multi-
standard antenna system that has operating frequencies below 6GHz as well as at
mm-waves. These antennas should be carefully designed to minimize correlation
and provide good efficiencies at all covered bands. The RF front-end along with
the transceiver chains are very vital components in this architecture as they need
to support various frequencies and cooperate between them. The processing part
is very important to achieve the anticipated data rates via MIMO and interference
mitigation. Energy harvesting mechanisms from ambient RF and solar sources is
to be integrated, with power management algorithms. As mentioned earlier, the
fact that more femto and pico cells (even atto cells) will be deployed will lower the
transmit power at the user terminal end thus providing longer battery life.

II. METRICS FOR MIMO ANTENNAS

It is apparent from the enabling technologies for 4G as well as 5G systems that using
MIMO antenna systems is one of the key components to be addressed and carefully
designed. Conventional antenna performance metrics are not enough to assess the

150
MIMO Antennas

performance of MIMO antenna systems. Several added metrics have been adopted
for this purpose and in this section we will go over them in details. The discussion
in this section follows those in (Sharawi, 2013)-(Sharawi, 2014) as well as the one
applied on an example taken from Dhar & Sharawi, 2014.

II.1 Resonance, Bandwidth, and Isolation

Antennas are resonance structures, meaning that at the frequency of interest, most of
the energy provided to them (assuming efficient antennas) will be radiated through
the radiation resistance model of the antenna structure. Thus minimal stored energy is
lost as the inductive and capacitive effects cancel one another. For a specific printed
antenna, the resonance frequency (where it operates) can be found from plotting its
complex impedance versus frequency, and identifying the point where its imaginary
value goes to zero. This is a feature for any radiating antenna.
An example of a printed MIMO antenna systems consisting of two semi-ring
shorted elements with dual band operation and very compact size is shown in Figure
3. Figure 4 (a) shows the complex impedance curves for this antenna. Note the dual-
band operation around 1.9 and 2.45 GHz. Another way of looking at resonance is
to check the reflection coefficient values using the S-parameters. The point where
you get the lowest reflection coefficient value, is the point of good matching, and
thus resonance, as you are comparing it to 50 Ω. Figure 4 (b) shows the magnitude
reflection coefficient (|S11|) curves for the two antennas in this MIMO configura-
tion; note the two bands of resonance.
The operating impedance bandwidth is usually defined as the range of frequen-
cies within which the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) is 2:1. This corresponds
to an |S11| value of -10dB. The two points crossing the -10dB points on the |S11|
curves mark the bandwidth of operation of this antenna. Since it is difficult to have

Figure 3. Semi-Ring dual-element printed MIMO antenna, (a) top side, (b) bottom side
(Dhar & Sharawi, 2014).

151
 MIMO Antennas

Figure 4. Resonance of a semi-ring MIMO Antenna, (a) input impedance and (b)
reflection coefficient
(Dhar & Sharawi, 2014).

152
MIMO Antennas

good matching over a wide band for electrically small and miniaturized antennas,
this value has been relaxed by the industry for MIMO antenna designs to become
3:1 corresponding to the -6dB points on the |S11| curves. The measured bandwidth
for the MIMO antenna under consideration was 15 and 32 MHz in the two bands
of operation, respectively.
Isolation between the ports is very important in multi-port and multi antenna
systems. If the isolation is poor, some of the energy fed or received by one port will
couple to the other thus degrading the antenna and system efficiency, as the coupled
power is effectively lost from the receiving path. So, port isolation is very important
in MIMO antenna systems. The system and antenna designer should always check for
port isolation, and values of more than 15 dBs are considered to provide acceptable
isolation. For the semi-ring antenna considered here, Figure 5 shows the isolation
curves between the two adjacent antennas where 13 and 14.5 dB is achieved in the
two bands, respectively, after introducing an isolation enhancement mechanism
which is a defected ground structure (DGS). Isolation enhancement methods are
discussed in the following sections.
The terms coupling and isolation are usually interchanged in literature as low
coupling yields high isolation. More specifically, isolation is usually found directly
from the s-parameters (isolation = -10 log10(|Sij|)) and is a positive quantity.

II.2 Gain Patterns

The gain or radiation patterns (spatial shape of the radiated electromagnetic fields
around the device) of the antennas are very important to have an idea about the
spatial coverage of the antenna around the device it is mounted on. In the past,
omni-directional (or doughnut shaped) patterns were enforced so that the antennas
can cover the space around the transmitting antenna, but nowadays, directional an-
tennas are preferred for mobile user terminals to minimize radiation into the head
and to focus the energy towards the base station side. In addition, the fact that most
handheld terminals are operating in a highly reflective and multipath environments
relaxed the concern of having nulls in the radiation patterns in some directions as
the multipath of the signal will have portion of it arriving from a different angle
and thus not losing the connection.
The simulated gain patterns at 1.9 GHz for the MIMO antenna in Figure 3 are
shown in Figure 6 for antenna elements 1 and 2. It is evident that they provide
good omni-directional radiation with some tilt with respect to one another. This is
important as we need to decouple the fields for better correlation behavior as will
be seen when evaluating the correlation coefficient of MIMO antennas. It should
be noted that the efficiency of this antenna is a little low (about 45%) because of
the miniaturization that was made to the antenna at its lower band.

153
 MIMO Antennas

Figure 5. Coupling curves for the dual-antenna semi-ring antenna

(Dhar & Sharawi, 2014).

Figure 6. Gain patterns for antenna element 1 and 2

(Dhar & Sharawi, 2014).

154
MIMO Antennas

II.3 Total Active Reflection Coefficient (TARC)

For multiport antenna systems, adjacent antenna elements affect each other and
when operating simultaneously affect the overall operating bandwidth and efficiency.
Thus depending on the S-parameters alone will not be enough to predict the actual
system behavior. A new metric that is denoted as the total active reflection coef-
ficient (TARC) has been introduced to take this effect into account in (Manteghi &
Rahmat-Samii, 2005). TARC is defined as the ratio of the square root of the total
reflected power divided by the square root of the total incident power in a multi-
port antenna system. TARC can be computed using the S-parameters of the MIMO
antenna system. For an N-element antenna, it is given by,

N
2
∑b i
Γat = i =1
(3)
N
2
∑a
i =1
i

where ai and bi are the incident signals and reflected signals, respectively. TARC
takes values between 0 and 1 where zero means all power was radiated while one
means all incident power was reflected and nothing was radiated. The available
power is the sum of powers available on all the ports of the antenna system. It also
includes the effect of the feeding phase differences between the antenna ports. Hence
a single curve of TARC can be used to determine the resonance frequency and
impedance bandwidth of the whole antenna system for a specified phase excitation
between its ports (Manteghi & Rahmat-Samii, 2005). For a 2-port MIMO antenna
( )
system, TARC Γat can be evaluated using (Su, Lee & Chang, 2012),

 2  2
 S11 + S12e jθ  +  S 22 + S 21e jθ 
 
  
Γat = (4)
2

where θ is input feeding phase, S xx is the reflection coefficient of the port and S xy
is the coupling between the two ports associated with the antenna structure. Once
the s-parameters of a 2-port network are found, the random phase is swept between
0 and 180 degrees to investigate the effect of the phase variation between the two
ports on the resonance behavior of the antenna and thus create the corresponding
TARC curves for effective BW assessment. Figure 7 shows the TARC curves for

155
 MIMO Antennas

Figure 7. TARC curves at 1.9 GHz for the MIMO antenna shown in Figure 3.

the semi-ring MIMO antenna shown in Figure 3 at the lower band of operation. The
aforementioned procedure was followed with angle steps of 30 degrees. Note that
the bandwidth and matching are not affected much by the phases of the neighboring
port.

II.4 Correlation Coefficient

The correlation coefficient (ρ) is a measure that describes how much the commu-
nication channels are isolated or correlated with each other. This metric considers
the radiation pattern of the antenna system, and how much the patterns affect one
another when operated simultaneously (which is the case in a MIMO antenna sys-
tem). The square of the correlation coefficient is known as the envelop correlation
coefficient. The envelop correlation coefficient (ρe) can be calculated using the
following formula (Blanch, Romeu & Corbella, 2003),

156
MIMO Antennas

2
 
F (θ, ϕ ) * F (θ, ϕ )d Ω
∫∫  1 2 
ρe = 4π
 2  2
(5)
∫∫ F1 (θ, ϕ ) d Ω∫∫ F2 (θ, ϕ ) d Ω
4π 4π


where Fi (θ, ϕ ) is the three dimensional field radiation pattern of the antenna when
the ith port is excited, and Ω is the solid angle. (*) is the Hermitian product operator.
Equation (5) is a complicated expression that requires three dimensional radiation
pattern measurements and numerical integration. It is valid when a uniform mul-
tipath environment of balanced polarization is considered (i.e. isotropic environment).
A simple derivation in (Blanch, Romeu & Corbella, 2003) shows that the correlation
coefficient can be calculated using the s-parameters when a lossless and single mode
antenna is considered (this is a very important condition that several researchers
ignore or do not understand). The effect of the efficiency on the envelope correla-
tion coefficient calculation from the s-parameters was added in (Hallbjorner, 2005).
This expression is given by,

Sii*Sij + S ji* S jj
ρij = ρeij = 0.5
(6)
 2 2  2 2 
1 − Sii − S ji  1 − S jj − Sij  ηradi ηradj
  

where ρij is correlation coefficient between elements i and j, ρeij is the envelop
correlation coefficient, Sij is the s-parameter between the i and j elements (coupling)
and ηradi , ηradj are the radiation efficiencies of elements i and j, respectively. In this
formula we need to know only the s-parameters and the radiation efficiencies that
can be evaluated easily as compared to the 3D radiation patterns required by (5). A
correlation coefficient value of 0.3 has been set as an acceptable value for 4G wire-
less systems (3GPP TS 36.101, 2008).
It has been shown in (Li, Lin, Lau & He, 2013) that (6) (usually if not always)
under-estimates the correlation coefficient values of a MIMO antenna system, and
gives a very optimistic view, while the reality is much worse. That is why (5) should
be used all the time as it provides a better measure of the correlation coefficient as

157
 MIMO Antennas

it is based on the actual radiated fields that affect the channels directly. Going back
to our dual-element printed antenna system, the calculated envelope correlation
coefficient from the radiated fields was 0.29 and 0.22 at the lower and higher bands,
respectively, while using the S-parameters they were 0.03 and 0.009, respectively.
The difference between the two methods is obvious.

II.5 Multiplexing Efficiency

Although MIMO systems improvement on the data rates is usually indicated using
the channel capacity of the system, this metric is less intuitive to antenna design-
ers and a power based or related one is more appreciable, and thus a new metric
that combines the effect of the efficiency of the antennas as well as the correlation
between them has been devised in (Tian, Lau & Ying, 2011) and was denoted as
the multiplexing efficiency.
Multiplexing efficiency is a metric for describing the performance of the MIMO
antenna system in spatial multiplexing mode (high SNR mode) that takes into ac-
count the efficiency as well as the correlation between the MIMO antenna elements.
The lower this metric the better. This metric can be evaluated for a MIMO antenna
system using,

1
N N 1
ηmux = ∏ ηm  det (R )N (7)
m =1 

where, ηm is the efficiency of the individual antenna element, and R is the normal-
ized correlation matrix whose diagonal elements are 1’s and the other elements are
the complex correlation coefficient values between the 3D radiation patterns of the
respective antenna elements in that position. A simplified approximate expression
for a 2x2 MIMO case for the multiplexing efficiency is given by,

 2
ηmux = η1η2 1 − ρ  (8)
 

II.6 Channel Capacity

Channel capacity is a measure of how many bits can be sent per 1 Hz of bandwidth.
It is used to compare the performance improvement of a MIMO system relative to a
single antenna system. It is also a convenient measure to determine the performance

158
MIMO Antennas

of the MIMO system relative to the case of ideal all independent channels system.
The channel capacity is usually measured in the form of a cumulative distribution
function (CDF) or relative to the SNR. The first step to find the channel capacity is
to determine the channel matrix. The channel matrix is determined by the radiation
patterns of the antenna system and the channel between them. The channel matrix
can be determined as (Li, Du, Takahashi, Saito & Ito, 2012):

H = ψR0.5G ψT0.5 (9)

where ψR and ψT are the MxM and NxN receive and transmit coefficient matrices,
respectively, and G is an MxN matrix of complex Gaussian random numbers rep-
resenting the random channel. The correlation coefficient entries can be computed
from

µij
ψi, j = (10)
µii µjj

where,

 {
µij = ∫ E Ai (Ω)  h (Ω) Aj* (Ω)  h * (Ω) d Ω
  } (11)

Here, E {•} is the expectation operator, Ai (Ω) represents the field pattern of
the ith element, and h (Ω) represents the incoming waves. This integral is very com-
plicated to evaluate, and requires complete knowledge of the 3D radiation patterns
of the antennas. Some assumptions can be used based on our a priori knowledge of
the channel that can reduce the complexity of (11). So if we assume a Rayleigh
fading channel, only horizontal incoming waves, uncorrelated orthogonal polariza-
tion of incoming waves and constant time average power density per steradian, then
the correlation coefficient expression becomes


2π
π  π   π   π 
µij = ∫  ΓAiθ  , ϕ Ai*θ  , ϕ + Aiϕ  , ϕ Aiϕ*  , ϕdϕ (12)
0   2   2   2   2 

where Γ is the cross-polarization discrimination factor that is a function of the en-

π  π 
vironment under consideration, and Aθ  , ϕ and Aϕ  , ϕ are the theta and phi
 2   2 
159
 MIMO Antennas

E-field patterns at θ = 90° . Once H is known from (9) - (12), the capacity can be
found using,

  ρ 
C = log2  det I R + HH T  (13)
  NT 


where I R is an N R × N R identity matrix, N R and NT are the number of receive

and transmit antennas and H T is the conjugate transpose of the H matrix. To get
the CDF, a sequence of the capacity values is generated by calculating the capacity
several times. This is a random sequence due to the dependence of the capacity on
the channel modeled. This random sequence is used to get the CDF for the capac-
ity. For calculating the capacity relative to the SNR, the SNR is increased in regu-
lar intervals and the capacity is calculated with a new value of SNR.

III. MIMO ANTENNA SYSTEM EXAMPLES

MIMO antennas have been implemented in many different communication systems to

overcome the limited bandwidth and congested spectrum. When dealing with a base
station for instance, we can easily manage to use several antennas, enough separated
to achieve the best performance of the MIMO system (the more antennas, the higher
the achieved capacity), as we are not limited by space constrains. However, in many
other situations, such as user handheld terminals, the space is very much reduced
and this limits the number of antennas to be used and their separation. Obviously
in these cases, careful designs with low coupling or even making use of other cor-
relation and coupling enhancement mechanisms (polarization, radiation pattern, etc)
becomes a necessity (Pablo-Gonzalez, Sanchez-Fernandez & Rajo-Iglesias, 2014).
Among the many possible classifications of MIMO designs and with the aim of
showing representative examples of these systems, we are focusing more on mobile
communication scenarios and particularly, handheld terminals. We will also separate
antenna designs based on their band coverage as single-band antenna and multi-
band. In both cases, the types of printed antennas range from monopoles, PIFAs,
rings and slots to dipoles or patches depending on the type and shape of the terminal
under consideration. These designs in many occasions include additional elements
to achieve compactness or to reduce coupling. Following are some representative
examples of printed MIMO antenna designs that have recently appeared in literature.
They are divided in two categories: single-band and multi-band antennas. In each
category, we list different examples covering different applications.

160
MIMO Antennas

III.1 Single Band MIMO Antenna Types

In this section we focus on single-band MIMO antenna system examples. We show

their geometrical characteristics and fundamentals of design along with their per-
formances. In recent years, hundreds of examples have been proposed in literature,
from simple types to be used in base stations or access points to more challenging
designs suffering from severe space constrains as the ones to be used in mobile
phone terminals or USB dongles. Even more, some of the last contributions in this
area make use of reconfigurability or use of exotic materials to achieve improved
performances. Two application sizes will be considered here, the first one covers a
mobile handset and the second covers a USB dongle MIMO antenna design.

1. A Mobile Handset MIMO Antenna System.

The new generations of cellular and smart phones, require more and more data
rates in transmission. One of the major challenges of MIMO printed antennas is to
be integrated within these terminals. A wide variety of antenna geometries have been
proposed to solve this problem considering an average area of such terminals that is
approximately 100x50 mm2. Dealing with single band antennas, just few examples
use frequency bands corresponding to LTE or low GSM bands, as it is difficult to
integrate more than one antenna at such low frequencies. Some examples can be
found in (Yu, Ji, Seong & Choi, 2011)-(Sharawi, Iqbal & Faouri, 2011).
Following are two examples; the first one manages to integrate four monopole-
type antennas in a mobile terminal (Yuan, Du, Gong & Feng, (2007). The antennas
are designed to operate covering the band from 1.88 to 2.2 GHz. A picture of the
manufactured prototype is included in Figure 8. The four monopoles are based on
two identical pairs and the isolation level is more than 11 dB in all cases. The mea-
sured radiation patterns of these four elements tend to cover complementary space
regions, which also can provide pattern diversity for the prototype. The maximum
envelope correlation obtained was 0.263 (ρe < 0.5) which indicates a good diversity
performance.
The second selected example is the one published in (Gao, Chen, Ying & Pa-
rini, 2007). In this case, the used antenna is a PIFA-type operating at 2.5GHz. The
PIFA elements were modified by introducing a small ground plane between the
PIFA and the PCB. Also a slit was added to reduce the antenna size influence of
the PCB. The antenna geometry is described in Figure 9. The achieved isolation
was more than 20 dB over the operating bandwidth. The envelope correlation was
less than 0.3 and a selection combiner diversity gain of around 9.3 dB was verified.

161
 MIMO Antennas

Figure 8. Front view (a) and back view of the four-element MIMO antenna system
Proposed in (Yuan, Du, Gong & Feng, (2007).

Figure 9. Modified PIFA

Proposed in (Gao, Chen, Ying & Parini, 2007)

162
MIMO Antennas

2. A USB Dongle MIMO Antenna System

The use of USB dongles for connectivity in wireless systems is very common
nowadays. This is probably the most challenging scenario for deploying MIMO
antenna systems due to the critical limitation in space. Here again, we must dis-
tinguish between services operating below 1GHz and those covering bands above
1GHz. Some examples of both can be found in the literature (Han & Choi, 2010)-
(Su, Lee & Chang, 2012), most of them use either monopoles, meander lines or
PIFA antennas as basic elements although few examples using slots or metamaterial
inspired antennas can also be found. The common issue of all these designs is that
they require the use of some strategy to decouple the two antennas, because they
are located too close to each other.
An example of such a design is presented in (Su, Lee & Chang, 2012), where
a two monopole-like antenna system decoupled by using the neutralization-line
technique is proposed. The prototype is shown in Figure 10. The obtained antenna
port isolation was more than 19 dB. The measured envelope correlation ρe was less
than 0.06 in the complete frequency band (2.4 GHz, WLAN). Both antennas exhibit
good efficiency and complementary radiation patterns, which provided diversity
gain (seen in Figure 10 (b)) improvement of approximately 9.8dBi (measured in a
reverberation chamber).

Figure 10. Prototype and simulated gain of antenna for USB dongle MIMO antenna
As proposed in (Su, Lee & Chang, 2012).

163
 MIMO Antennas

III.2 Multi Band MIMO Systems

The use of new frequency bands to cover some communication systems with im-
proved data rates and new services impose new requirements for terminals, as they
need to operate in the new bands but keeping also the operability in the existing
ones. Two main solutions can be implemented, either using a wide band antenna
or a multi-band one. In both cases, the deployment in the terminal of a MIMO
system adds new challenges to the design as either of the additional elements, as
for instance decoupling lines, should be working for all the considered frequencies,
thus multi-band isolation enhancement methods are required.

Multi-Band MIMO Antenna Types

Here again, the topology of the antenna used in terminals is very similar to the
case of single band antennas, i.e., monopoles, slots, PIFAs, but always with special
modifications or shape combinations that provide multi-band operation. Examples
covering the low frequency bands as LTE or GSM can be found in literature such
as (Payandehjoo & Abhari, 2013) as well as others covering all the bands such as
(Nezhad & Hassani, 2010).

1. A Mobile Handset MIMO Antenna System.

Multiband MIMO antennas that are suitable for Mobile wireless handsets and
mobile phones should cover the GSM and PCS bands, as well as new bands such
as LTE, UMTS and even WLAN. Coupling can degrade the performance of the
MIMO schemes when including frequency bands below 1GHz. Basically printed
monopoles and modified PIFA’s are preferred the most.
The first example we have selected to show in this section is the one corre-
sponding with reference (Sharawi, Numan, Khan & Aloi, 2012). Here, a dual band
antenna covering the LTE (800 MHz) band and the 2440-2900 band is proposed
with a new antenna shape (similar to a ‘4’ number) as shown in Figure 11. Here,
a defected ground plane helping with the antenna isolation can also be seen. The
prototype exhibits very good isolation in the two frequency bands as experimentally
verified (seen in Figure 12) and correlation coefficient values of less than 0.21 were
obtained in both bands of operation. For this example the TARC values as defined
in the previous section were calculated for both frequency bands being below -6
and -4 dB respectively for low and high frequencies.
The second example corresponds to a decoupled planar penta-band antenna for
WWAN operation in an internal mobile phone (Ban, Yang, Chen, Kang & Li, 2014).
The antenna achieves two wide bands to cover the WWAN operation in 824–960

164
MIMO Antennas

Figure 11. Manufactured dual band prototype with high isolation; (a) Front view.
(b) Back view.
From (Sharawi, Numan, Khan & Aloi, 2012)

Figure 12. Measured S-parameters of the prototype in Fig. 11

(Sharawi, Numan, Khan & Aloi, 2012).

165
 MIMO Antennas

and 1710–2170 MHz. Basically, the antenna is composed of a main part that com-
bines a driven circuit with a short circuit and an additional stop-band circuit. A wide
T-shaped protruded ground between the antenna elements is also used for decoupling
the elements and accommodating electronic components as USB or speakers. This
provides an isolation larger than 15 dB. The measured correlation coefficient is less
than 0.5 and the multiplexing efficiency is also measured as -3dB in the upper band.
A larger loss of multiplexing efficiency is observed for the lower band due to
slightly lower total efficiency and higher correlation compared to the upper one.
Nevertheless, the difference of multiplexing efficiency between the upper band and
lower band does not exceed 1 dB even for the extreme case at high signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR) of 40 dB. A picture of the manufactured prototype can be seen in Fig-
ure 13.

2. A Tablet PC MIMO Antenna System.

This is perhaps the easiest of the proposed scenarios due to the relatively large
size of the terminal. This allows the use of more antennas (Shen, Chen, Peng &
Lin, 2013) or the extension to multiple bands (Fernandez & Sharma, 2013) or even
addition of reconfigurability (Mun, Jung, Park & Lee, 2014).

Figure 13. Manufactured prototype of a dual-broad band antenna; (a) Front view.
(b) Back view.
As proposed in (Ban, Yang, Chen, Kang & Li, 2014).

166
MIMO Antennas

Figure 14. Fabricated antenna for measurement: (a) overall view with dc biasing
and (b) detailed view of the T-shaped dc line
Taken from (Mun, Jung, Park & Lee, 2014)

The example presented here deals with a 2-element MIMO system using anten-
nas consisting of two PIFA elements each, combined using a T-shaped dc line and
two PIN diodes in conjunction with a proximity-coupled feed structure (Mun, Jung,
Park & Lee, 2014). The fabricated prototype is shown in Figure 14. Depending on
the state of the diodes (ON/OFF) two modes of radiation are achieved (State 1 and
2). The antenna can cover the North American LTE 17/13 (704–787 MHz) bands
at State 1 and the European LTE 20/7 (791–862 MHz, 2500–2690 MHz) bands at
State 2. High isolation (more than 20 dB) and low correlation coefficient (less than
0.016) are obtained in both states and for all the bands.

III.3 Design Guidelines

After presenting several examples of MIMO antenna design for different types of
terminals we end up this section with a brief summary about how to approach the
design of antennas for MIMO terminals for different applications. It is important to
have some systematic procedure to accomplish with specific requirements. These
are the main steps we have identified:

1. Have a clear idea of the specifications and requirements, not only referred
to size but also to placement. This includes as well a good knowledge of the
standard.
2. Start from a well-known antenna type. This is a critical step, the selection of
the starting point. A good practice is to choose the most used antenna type for
the given application and have a good understanding of the way it works.
3. Use an appropriate simulation tool. This means also to have a good knowledge
of the software and how to introduce all the modeling details related to materi-
als or antenna working’s environment.

167
 MIMO Antennas

4. Use of advanced techniques to improve performance. For miniaturization

purposes or coupling reduction for instance. Also parametric studies are rec-
ommended in order to achieve a better understanding of the antenna behavior.
5. Manufacturing a prototype of the single-basic antenna. This steps helps to
understand the discrepancies between simulations and measurements.
6. Design the MIMO antenna considering the design/application requirements.
Here, the number of antennas to use and their location must be evaluated by
means of the various MIMO antenna system metrics. Considering the nature
of the antenna and spacing, isolation techniques can be evaluated in this step.
Here again, parametric studies are recommended to obtain a complete under-
standing of the MIMO antenna.
7. Manufacturing and measuring the MIMO prototype. Once the design has been
optimized with the simulation tool, it is time for manufacturing a prototype.
The main parameters as gain, radiation pattern, efficiency as well as correla-
tion coefficient and system capacity must be measured in the corresponding
facilities.
8. Final tuning of the prototype if required. This step goes in combination with
the previous one to achieve the optimized antenna that will be ready for pro-
duction or publication.

IV. FUTURE CHALLENGES

IV.1 Reducing Coupling between Adjacent Antennas

Coupling between adjacent antennas is inevitable in mobile terminals that share the
same GND plane. This coupling if not improved will degrade the efficiency of the
system and usually increase the radiation correlation as well, thus deteriorating the
MIMO advantage. Usually designers introduce an isolation enhancement method to
increase port isolation. These methods can be summarized into one of the following
methods (Sharawi, 2014),

1. Changing the orientation or polarization of the antennas

2. Use of decoupling networks via lumped or distributed elements
3. Use of defected ground structures (DGS)
4. Use of parasitic elements
5. Use of neutralization lines
6. Use of engineered materials (or metamaterial).

168
MIMO Antennas

Several examples have appeared in literature on each of the methods above, and
the designer should pay attention to which method is more suitable to his/her design
based on the antenna type and radiation mechanism, as some methods might not
improve the isolation if applied to certain antenna types or radiation mechanisms.
Thus for new MIMO antenna types and geometries, new isolation mechanisms that
are based on one of the previously mentioned categories needs to be developed, and
this is still a green area of research to pursue.

IV.2 Reducing Correlation Coefficient and Its Characterization

The correlation coefficient needs to be reduced in order to guarantee good multi-

plexing MIMO performance. Also a high total efficiency is required to accomplish
this aim. In general, these requirements are quite challenging to achieve in mobile
phones and other small terminals due to the limited space and close placement of
the antennas (unless that the antennas are placed at the furthest edges of the ter-
minal). When dealing with high frequency bands, low correlation coefficient can
be obtained by reducing the mutual coupling with any of the techniques described
before in addition to designing tilted radiation patterns. That is not the case for lower
bands, where the wavelength is too long and the design of each compact antenna
itself is challenging, the space to add de-correlating structures is very small and
both antennas and de-correlating structures become too close. Even more, at these
frequencies, all the antennas will have a very similar radiation pattern, leading to
very high correlation.
Different solutions to this problem have been reported recently. The use of
neutralization lines is one of the most promising ways of getting a low correla-
tion, given that the patterns are also not overlapping (Jensen & Lau, 2010). Also
decoupling networks located after the ports can be an efficient way of doing it, but
can have problems due to high losses (Lau & Andersen, 2012). Another interest-
ing approach is to optimize the Q factor of the individual antennas as proposed in
(Zhang, Glazunov, Ying & He 2013).
How to characterize this parameter is also another important issue. A simple
measurement of the S parameter with a vector network analyzer is not sufficient
to get a good estimation of the correlation coefficient. Somehow the RF wireless
propagation environment must be emulated. This is known as over the air testing
(OTA) but unfortunately is not yet fully standardized. The major issue to solve is
how to create repeatable measurement that represents a real MIMO channel for
various operating modes of the device (different channel conditions).

169
 MIMO Antennas

Three main method are used so far:

1. The anechoic chamber multi-probe OTA method (3GPP TR 37.976, 2012).

2. The two-stage OTA method (Jing, Wen, Kong, Duffy & Rumney, 2011).
3. The reverberation chamber OTA method (Kildal, Chen, Orlenius, Franzen &
Patane, 2012)

The last method (reverberation chamber) seems to be the best candidate for
MIMO OTA testing for its fast measurement capability and specifically to calculate
the correlation coefficient. However the radiation pattern cannot be measured in
these chambers and sometimes, the information from them is important to fully
characterize the antennas.

IV.3 Future MIMO Antenna Implementations

and the Market Trends

Coming up with new antenna geometries that can fit within new products and mobile
terminals will continue to be a challenge for antenna designers given that they need
to satisfy the contradicting requirements of miniaturization, efficiency, small space
and low correlation in addition to high isolation. Some of the recent standards such
as the IEEE 802.11ac allow for having up to 8-antenna elements within a mobile
terminal, placing a very stringent requirement on space and correlation between
the elements. Thus, careful and innovative antenna element design continues to be
a challenge.
As has been discussed in a previous section, 5G communications will heavily
rely on MIMO systems as well. In addition, several new enabling technologies need
to be considered by antenna designers who are preparing to enter the area of next
generation antenna design. Next generation antennas will have several challenges
that need to be tackled, especially the use of mm-waves for short range communica-
tions due to their potential very wide available bandwidth. This has been shown in
(Rappaportet al., 2013) and several groups around the world are approaching this.
Having mm-wave antenna arrays will add a challenge to antenna and system level
designers where such arrays need to be placed and integrated with current anten-
nas and RF transceiver designs to provide this promised multifold increase in the
system capacity.
In addition, active antennas and active integrated MIMO antennas are being
heavily investigated for current and future MIMO based user terminals. The use
of active elements can compensate for the low gain achieved with high levels of
miniaturization, and also can aid in providing port isolation between the multiport

170
MIMO Antennas

antenna systems. Some antenna vendors are currently relying on active antennas and
MIMO antenna systems in some of the commercial devices as we speak. This area
is still not fully investigated by the antenna community and requires more research
in the near future.

V. CONCLUSION

MIMO antenna systems are being used in current 4G and will be used in 5G mobile
communication systems. The need for having multiple antennas operating in multiple
or wide bands is inevitable in modern system designs, and when MIMO capabil-
ity is added on top of that, the design becomes very challenging. In this chapter,
we cover the basics and advantages of MIMO antenna systems, and go over all
the performance metrics that characterize their behavior. Several design examples
are provided to show the various antenna types and applications considered for
real portable devices, such as mobile phones, USB dongles, and laptop/tablet PC
sizes. After the list of various examples highlighting their features and performance
metrics, we go over some general design guidelines that can help a MIMO antenna
designer to have a systematic way of thinking and steps to be followed while going
over a new design. And finally, we list and address some of the major challenges
encountered while designing such antenna systems and some of the methods that
have been investigated in literature to overcome them.

REFERENCES

Ali Nezhad, S. M., & Hassani, H. R. (2010). A Novel Triband E-Shaped Printed
Monopole Antenna for MIMO Application. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propaga-
tion Letters, 9, 576–579. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2010.2051131
Ban, Y. L., Yang, S., Chen, Z., Kang, K., & Li, J. L.-W. (2014). Decoupled Planar
WWAN Antennas With T-Shaped Protruded Ground for Smartphone Applica-
tions. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 13, 483–486. doi:10.1109/
LAWP.2014.2309960
Blanch, S., Romeu, J., & Corbella, I. (2003). Exact representation of antenna system
diversity performance from input parameter description. IET Electronic Letters,
39(9), 705–707. doi:10.1049/el:20030495
Boch, E. (2008). Backhaul for WiMAX and LTE: High-Bandwidth Ethernet Radio
systems. Microwave Journal, (supplement), 22–26.

171
 MIMO Antennas

Cheng-Xiang, W., Haider, F., Xiqi, G., Xiao-Hu, Y., Yang, Y., Dongfeng, Y., &
Hepsaydir, E. et al. (2014). Cellular Architecture and Key Technologies for 5G Wire-
less Communication Networks. IEEE Communications Magazine, 52(2), 122–130.
doi:10.1109/MCOM.2014.6736752
Chung, J. Y., Yang, T., Lee, J., & Jeong, J. (2011). Low correlation MIMO antenna
for LTE 700MHz band. In Proceedings of 2011 IEEE International Symposium on
Antennas and Propagation (APSURSI). IEEE.
Dhar, S., & Sharawi, M. S. (2014). A Multi-band Isolation Enhanced Loaded Semi-
ring MIMO Antenna. Paper presented at European Microwave Conference (EuMC
2014), Rome, Italy. doi:10.1109/EuMC.2014.6986451
Fernandez, S. C., & Sharma, S. K. (2013). Multiband Printed Meandered Loop
Antennas With MIMO Implementations for Wireless Routers. IEEE Antennas and
Wireless Propagation Letters, 12, 96–99. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2013.2243104
Gao, Y., Chen, X., Ying, Z., & Parini, C. (2007). Design and Performance Investigation
of a Dual-Element PIFA Array at 2.5 GHz for MIMO Terminal. IEEE Transactions
on Antennas and Propagation, 55(12), 3433–3441. doi:10.1109/TAP.2007.910353
Garg, V. K. (2007). Wireless Communications and Networking. Morgan Kaufmann.
3. GPP. (3023). Measurement of Radiated Performance for MIMO and Multi-
Antenna Reception for HSPA and LTE Terminals. 3GPP TR 37.976 Report, Rev.
11.0.0.
3. GPP TS 36.101, V8.3.0. (2008). EUTRA User Equipment Radio Transmission
and Reception. 3GPP.
Hallbjorner, P. (2005). The Significance of Efficiencies When Using S-Parameters
to Calculate the Received Signal Correlation From two Antennas. IEEE Antennas
and Wireless Propagation Letters, 4(1), 97–99. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2005.845913
Han, M., & Choi, J. (2010). MIMO Antenna using a Decoupling Network for 4G
USB Dongle Application. Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 52(11),
2551–2554. doi:10.1002/mop.25551
Jensen, M. A., & Lau, B. K. (2010). Uncoupled matching for active and passive
impedances of coupled arrays in MIMO systems. IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, 58(10), 3336–3343. doi:10.1109/TAP.2010.2055803
Jing, Y., Wen, Z., Kong, H., Duffy, S., & Rumney, M. (2011). Two-stage over the air
(OTA) test method for MIMO device performance evaluation. 2011 IEEE Int. Symp.
on Antennas and Propagation (APSURSI). IEEE. doi:10.1109/APS.2011.5996385

172
MIMO Antennas

Kildal, P.-S., Chen, X., Orlenius, C., Franzen, M., & Patane, C. S. L. (2012).
Characterization of Reverberation Chambers for OTA Measurements of Wireless
Devices: Physical Formulations of Channel Matrix and New Uncertainty Formula.
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 60(8), 3875–3891. doi:10.1109/
TAP.2012.2201125
Kim, B., Park, Y., Wi, H., Park, M. Y., Choi, Y., Lee, J., & Lee, B. et al. (2012).
Isolation Enhancement of USB Dongle MIMO Antenna in LTE 700 Band Applica-
tions. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 11, 961–964. doi:10.1109/
LAWP.2012.2213293
Lau, B. K., & Andersen, J. B. (2012). Simple and efficient decoupling of compact
arrays with parasitic scatterers. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,
60(2), 464–472. doi:10.1109/TAP.2011.2173440
Li, H., Lin, X., Lau, B. K., & He, S. (2013). Equivalent Circuit Based Calculation
of Signal Correlation in Lossy MIMO Antennas. IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, 61(10), 5214–5222. doi:10.1109/TAP.2013.2273212
Li, Z., Du, Z., Takahashi, M., Saito, K., & Ito, K. (2012). Reducing Mutual Coupling
of MIMO Antennas With Parasitic Elements for Mobile Terminals. IEEE Transac-
tions on Antennas and Propagation, 60(2), 473–481. doi:10.1109/TAP.2011.2173432
Manteghi, M., & Rahmat-Samii, Y. (2005). Multiport characteristics of a wideband
cavity backed annular patch antenna for multipolarization operations. IEEE Transac-
tions on Antennas and Propagation, 53(1), 466–474. doi:10.1109/TAP.2004.838794
Mohammadi, A., & Ghannouchi, F. M. (2012). RF Transceiver Design for MIMO
Wireless Communications. Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-27635-4
Mun, B., Jung, C., Park, M. J., & Lee, B. (2014). A Compact Frequency-Reconfigu-
rable Multiband LTE MIMO Antenna for Laptop Applications. IEEE Antennas and
Wireless Propagation Letters, 13, 1389–1392. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2014.2339802
Pablo-Gonzalez, M. L., Sanchez-Fernandez, M., & Rajo-Iglesias, E. (2014). Com-
bination of the Three Types of Diversity to Design High-Capacity Compact MIMO
Terminals. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE, 13, 1309–1312.
doi:10.1109/LAWP.2014.2336174
Payandehjoo, K., & Abhari, R. (2013). Compact Multi-Band PIFAs on a Semi-
Populated Mobile Handset With Tunable Isolation. IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, 61(9), 4814–4819. doi:10.1109/TAP.2013.2267718

173
 MIMO Antennas

Pedersen, K. I., Andersen, J. B., Kermoal, J. P., & Mogensen, P. (2000). A Stochastic
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output Radio Channel Model for Evaluation of Space-Time
Coding Algorithms. In Proceedings of IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference.
Tokyo: IEEE. doi:10.1109/VETECF.2000.887129
Rappaport, T.S., Shu Sun, Mayzus, R., Hang Zhao, Azar, Y., Wang, K., … Gutier-
rez, F. (2013). Millimeter Wave Mobile Communications for 5G Cellular: It will
Work!. IEEE Access, 1, 335-349.
Renzo, M. D., Hass, H., Ghrayeb, A., Suguira, S., & Hanzo, L. (2014). Spatial
Modulation for Generalized MIMO: Challenges, Opportunities and Implementa-
tion. Proceedings of the IEEE, 102(1), 56–103. doi:10.1109/JPROC.2013.2287851
Rusek, F., Persson, D., Lau, B. K., Larsson, E. G., Marzetta, T. L., Edfors, O., &
Tuvesson, F. (2013). Scaling Up MIMO: Opportunities and Challenges with Very
Large Arrays. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 30(1), 40–60. doi:10.1109/
MSP.2011.2178495
Sharawi, M. S. (2013). Printed Multi-band MIMO Antenna Systems and their
Performance Metrics. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, 55(5), 218–232.
doi:10.1109/MAP.2013.6735522
Sharawi, M. S. (2014). Printed MIMO Antenna Engineering. Artech House.
Sharawi, M. S., Iqbal, S. S., & Faouri, Y. S. (2011). An 800 MHz 2 x 1 Compact
MIMO Antenna System for LTE Handsets. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
Propagation, 59(8), 3128–3131. doi:10.1109/TAP.2011.2158958
Sharawi, M. S., Numan, A. B., Khan, M. U., & Aloi, D. N. (2012). A Dual-Element
Dual-Band MIMO Antenna System With Enhanced Isolation for Mobile Terminals.
IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 11, 1006–1009. doi:10.1109/
LAWP.2012.2214433
Shen, S.-M., Chen, I. F., Peng, C. M., & Lin, D. M. (2013). Printed Asymmetric
Dual-Dipole Antenna for Tablet PC Applications. IEEE Antennas and Wireless
Propagation Letters, 12, 1003–1005. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2013.2277877
Su, S. W., Lee, C. T., & Chang, F. S. (2012). Printed MIMO-Antenna System
Using Neutralization-Line Technique for Wireless USB-Dongle Applications.
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 60(2), 456–463. doi:10.1109/
TAP.2011.2173450

174
 MIMO Antennas

Talwar, S., Choudhury, D., Dimou, K., Aryafar, E., Bangerter, B., & Stewart, K.
(2014). Enabling Technologies and Architectures for 5G Wireless. IEEE Interna-
tional Microwave Symposium (IMS). IEEE. doi:10.1109/MWSYM.2014.6848639
Tian, R., Lau, B. K., & Ying, Z. (2011). Multiplexing Efficiency of MIMO Anten-
nas. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 10, 183–186. doi:10.1109/
LAWP.2011.2125773
Yu, Y., Ji, J., Seong, W., & Choi, J. (2011). A Compact MIMO Antenna with
Improved Isolation Bandwidth for Mobile Applications. Microwave and Optical
Technology Letters, 53(10), 2314–2317. doi:10.1002/mop.26293
Yuan, D., Du, Z., Gong, K., & Feng, Z. (2007). A Four-Element Antenna System
for Mobile Phones. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 6, 655–658.
doi:10.1109/LAWP.2007.913276
Zhang, S., Glazunov, A. A., Ying, Z., & He, S. (2013). Reduction of the Envelope
Correlation Coefficient With Improved Total Efficiency for Mobile LTE MIMO
Antenna Arrays: Mutual Scattering Mode. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
Propagation, 61(6), 3280–3291. doi:10.1109/TAP.2013.2248071

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Antenna Radiation Pattern: Is a graphical depiction of the relative field strength

transmitted from or received by the antenna in all directions in the space.
Bandwidth: Frequency range in which a device or system can work within
properly.
Channel Capacity: Is a measure of how much information per channel usage
we can get through a channel. Measured in bits/s/Hz.
Correlation Coefficient: Is a measure that describes how much the communica-
tion channels are isolated or correlated to each other.
MIMO System: Is a radio communication system that increase the transmission
capacity beyond the Shannon-limit by using multiple transmitters and receivers (i.e.
multiple antennas).

175

View publication stats