WE3B_06 2016 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation (APCAP)

Slot Type MIMO Antennas

with Enhancing Isolation
Shun-Yun Lin1, Yuan-Chih Lin2, Jian-Jeng Wang1 and Yan-Yu Tuan1
1
Department of Electronics Engineering, Cheng Shiu University Kaohsiung city,Taiwan R.O.C
2
Metal Industries Research & Development Centre, Taiwan R.O.C

Abstract - This article presents the effects of conductive

superstrate on a slot type MIMO antenna. The proposed
antenna consists of two L-shaped open-slots, a rectangular
ground plane, and a conductive superstrate. The slots are
separated by a distance of 0.04g at resonant frequency. A
folded conductive superstrate is used to reduce the mutual
coupling between the closed slots. Moreover, a notched folded-
superstrate introduces a controllable resonance in isolation
between antenna elements. In our implemented prototype, the
envelop correlation coefficient between antenna elements is less
than 0.1 over the ISM band.
Index Terms — Antennas, propagation, EM wave theory,
AP-related topics.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Fig. 1 (a) shows the configuration of the proposed MIMO
antenna. It consists of two printed L-shaped slots, a
rectangular ground plane, and a folded conductive superstrate.
Whole structure is fabricated like a rectangular box. The 21
MIMO slot antenna is presented in Fig. 1(b). Two L-shaped
slots are printed on an FR4 substrate (r = 4.4, thickness 0.8
mm) and fed by 50- microstrip lines. Note that the slots
open on the upper edge of ground plane. Both slot length are
21 mm that is about one quarter guided wavelength at 2.45
GHz.

I. INTRODUCTION
MIMO antenna is required since it offers an antenna array
to implement spatial division multiple access technology to
resolve co-channel interference and raise channel capacity. A
MIMO antenna has more than two antennas operating at the
same band to transmit multiple decorrelated signals.
Therefore, it is important to maintain the independence of
each element to ensure desired performance. In addition,
wide beamwidth, high radiation efficiency, and more antenna (a)
elements are expected to raise channel capacity.
The mutual coupling is mainly caused in two ways [1], superstrate
radiated emission (RE; through electromagnetic coupling)
folding
and conducted emission (CE, through a common conductor line
such as the ground plane). For closed antenna elements, the
neutralization technique has attracted much attention for high
isolation [2]. A stepped connection between antenna element 60
64
and system ground plane has been used to obstruct the CE
coupling in our previous study [3]. Furthermore, additional
decoupling structure is usually needed to achieve better
isolation [4].
This article presents the effects of conductive superstrate 27
on a MIMO antenna with two closed slots. The proposed (c)
(b) (c)
MIMO antenna consists of two printed L-shaped slots, a
rectangular ground plane, and a conductive superstrate. The .
Fig. 1 Configuration of the proposed antenna. (a) Whole structure, (b) slot
antennas, in terms of operating wavelengths, have a compact type MIMO antenna, (c) unfolded notched-spurestrate. Unit: mm.
overall area of 0.38g×0.85g at 2.45 GHz. The slots are
separated by a distance of 0.04g (3 mm) at resonant
frequency. This closed pack usually results in very strong
mutual coupling between the antenna elements. In this study, III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
the mutual coupling is effectively degraded owing to the The S-parameters of the 12 slot type MIMO antenna
conductive superstrate. More characteristics of the design are without superstrate are studied in Fig. 2 first. Experimental
presented in the following sections. results indicate that both slot antennas resonate at 2.40 GHz

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WE3B_06 2016 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation (APCAP)

0
and isolation (S12) is about 7 dB. It indicates a large mutual
coupling between the slots.
-10
0

-20
-5
S-parameter (dB)

-10 -30

-15 -40 prop. S11

prop. S12
prop. S22
S11
-20
S12 -50
S22
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
-25
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Frequency (GHz)
(b)
Fig. 2 Measured S-parameters of the proposed MIMO antenna.
Fig. 3 Measured S-parameters of studied antenna. (a) Reference antenna, (b)
To clearly illustrate the effects of notched superstrate, a Proposed antenna. The antenna parameters are a=4 mm, b=13 mm,
reference design, which is the same as the proposed antenna c=19 mm, d=1 mm.
except for a conventional rectangular superstrate, was also
1
studied. Fig. 3 (a) and (b) shows the measured S11, S22, and
S12 of the studied antennas. Firstly, the resonant frequencies correlation
of both prototypes are slightly increased to about 2.43 GHz.
It is possibly caused by the reduced resonant cavity due to the
adding of superstrate. Note that the isolation of the reference
between the slot antennas is raised to about 12 dB. Moreover, 0.5

the S12 of the proposed, shown in figure (c), has a resonance

which almost synchronizes with S11 and S22. This
characteristic is owing to the notched superstrate. It
introduces a current trapper at specific band that could be
determined by the coupling portion. 0
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
The radiation characteristics of the MIMO antenna are
measured by Bluetest HP-700 to examine the effectiveness.
The radiation efficiency and peak gain of both antenna Fig. 4 Measured ECC of the 12 MIMO slot antenna.
elements are about 60% and 1.4 dBi. In addition, the envelop
correlation coefficient (ECC, shown in Fig. 4) is less than 0.1
IV. CONCLUSION
over 2.40~2.48 GHz, and channel captivity@ SNR 20 dB is
twice as big as a single slot antenna. A two-port slot type MIMO antenna with enhanced
isolation is practical accomplished. The novel conductive
superstrate, which could be regarded as an upper casing of a
0
mobile device, effectively enhances the isolation between the
closely packed antenna elements. Moreover, the isolation
-10
resonance is studied and successfully implemented. It could
be independently adjusted to specific band.
-20

-30 REFERENCES
[1] C. R. Paul, Introduction to electromagnetic compatibility, Wiley, 1992.
-40 ref.S11 [2] A. C. K. Mak, C. R. Rowell, and R. D. Murch, “Isolation Enhancement
ref.S12 Between Two Closely Packed Antennas”, IEEE Trans. on Antenna and
ref.S22
Propaga., vol. 56, pp. 3411 – 3419, 2008.
-50 [3] S. Y. Lin and H. R. Huang, “Ultra-Wideband MIMO Antenna with
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Enhanced Isolation,” Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 51, pp. 570-
573, 2009.
[4] S. Y. Lin, Y. C. Lin, J. J. Wang, and W. S. Chen, “Effects of
(a) Conductive Superstrate On USB Dongle Antennas,” Proceedings of
Asia Pacific Microwave Conf., pp. 610-612, 2012.

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