An Ultra Wideband MIMO Antenna with

Improved Isolation
Gouri Das Adhikary, Ajeet Singh Maurya, Shrivishal Tripathi

Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee International Institute of Information Technology,

Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh, 493661

 integrated to form the antenna resulting in a much

Abstract— A new super ultra wideband 4×4 Multiple
Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna with high
isolation is proposed and its characteristics are studied.
In order to achieve the operational bandwidth from 2.2
GHz to 20 GHz in the design, elliptical shaped
monopoles are used. Furthermore, to enhance the
isolation two monopoles (M2, M4) are on one side of the
substrate and other two monopoles (M1, M3) are on the
other side of the substrate. In addition to that for further
improvement in the isolation a rectangular slot is
introduced in the substrate, which lies between the
monopole M1 and M2. The dimension of MIMO
antenna is 70 × 80 mm2. The proposed MIMO antenna
demonstrates a good isolation more than 20 dB in most
of the operating band. The proposed antenna
performance in terms of S-parameter, surface current
distribution, ECC, radiation pattern, and gain is also
presented and discussed.
Index Terms—MIMO antenna, UWB, Isolation, ECC.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ITH increasing demand of wireless
communication, exponential growth in demand
of data rate requirement increases, and at the same
time it require more reliability in data transmission.
These include services like high quality audio/video
calls, online video streaming, and online gaming.
These features require wide operating bandwidth
covering several frequency bands. As the antenna
being the front end of any communication system, the
designed antenna needs to be a wideband with good
desired characteristic. It is observed in case of ultra
wideband antenna system that its signal also get
affected by the fading issue, and to overcome this
issue Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)
technology is applied [1]. Antenna arrays and MIMO
antenna system mutual coupling among the antenna
monopole deteriorate the overall efficiency of the
antenna system. Various types of 4×4 wideband
MIMO antenna are proposed in the literature [1 -
5].In, [1], a 8-port planar UWB MIMO antenna was
proposed for 5G micro wireless access point
applications in which three monopole strips with
different structures and resonant modes were
wider bandwidth to cover UWB frequency range from
5.15-10.6 GHz. In [2], a UWB MIMO with 4
elements was proposed covering frequency range of 3
GHz to 10.6 GHz bandwidth with a reflection
coefficient lower than -10 dB. The antenna has size of
(60 × 50) mm2 and single antenna element consists of
quarter elliptical ring radiator, and value of isolation
was more than 10 dB. In [3], a four-element MIMO
antenna for portable wireless (UWB) applications was
proposed having compact size of 42 × 25 mm2. It
covers wide frequency band 3.1- 12 GHz, and has
high isolation greater than 22 dB due to inherent
directional radiation properties of slot antennas. The
size of antenna is reduced due to stepped slot in it. In
[4], a four-element MIMO antenna for wireless ultra-
wide band (UWB) applications and systems was
proposed having frequency bandwidth 1.5- 12.5 GHz
with the dimension of 30×60×1.5 mm2. In [5], a
compact printed UWB MIMO antenna was presented
with dimension of 55 × 26 mm2 covering the
frequency range between 3.7 - 12 GHz for S11 is lower
than -10dB with one notch frequency band between
5.1 - 12 GHz and isolation is better than 17.5 dB.
In the proposed work, a 4×4 wideband MIMO
antenna is designed, and various techniques has been
used in the design to achieve good antenna
performance in term of bandwidth, isolation, and
throughput. In the proposed antenna design, many
circular cuts have been introduced in monopole M1,
M2, which helps in the betterment of S-parameter,
and helps to achieve super UWB frequency range 2-
20 GHz. It leads to change in current direction and
enhancement in radiation phenomena. Moreover,
monopole antenna M1 and M2 have been designed as
well as placed in such a way that it leads to significant
isolation improvement. Elliptical shaped monopoles
are used to get wideband phenomena. Furthermore, to
enhance the isolation among the four monopoles, two
monopoles (M2, M4) are placed on one side of the
substrate and other two monopoles (M1, M3) are
placed on the other side of the substrate. Additionally,
an rectangular slot of dimension 10 × 30 mm2 is
subtracted from the substrate, and it is located
between the monopole M1 and M2 to achieve the
isolation around 20 dB in most of the operating band.
 II. ANTENNA DESIGN DETAILS
The proposed 4×4 wideband MIMO antenna is
designed using Rogers Duroid 5880 substrate with
dielectric constant 2.2 of dimensions 70 × 80 × 1.6
mm3. Ansys HFSS simulation tool is used in the
design and analysis of the proposed antenna. Since,
such antenna system consists of four radiating
structures, and these are working simultaneously,
extra care should be taken to ensure that monopoles
are very well isolated. A rectangular slot of dimension
10 × 30 mm2 was subtracted from the substrate to
ensure the maximum isolation between the two
antenna elements. The optimized design of proposed
4×4 wideband MIMO antenna is shown in Fig. 1, and
respective dimensions of each segment is described in
the figure itself.
All the four monopoles of the 4×4 wideband
MIMO antenna are fed through a fedline of width 5
mm. The monopoles M3 and M4 of antenna is
constructed of an ellipse of major axis 27.6 mm and
the minor axis 24 mm and the ground dimensions are
30 × 6 mm2. The monopoles M1 and M2 consists of
modified length 10.53 mm on the upper side and 8
mm on the bottom side. Moreover, circular shaped
contour having many circular cuts are also
Fig.2. Surface current Distribution at three resonant
accommodate in the antenna to improve the S-
frequencies (a) 5.9 GHz (b)10.9 GHz (c) 13.3 GHz.
parameter performance. These changes in the design
of the monopoles M1 and M2 initiates the change of
on the reference GND plane of MIMO antenna at its
direction of the current flow, and it leads to enhance
first resonance of 5.9 GHz. As evident from the
the radiation performance too.
figures, a high current density was along the edge of
The surface current distribution at resonant
M3. The reference GND plane also acts as a part of
frequencies is shown in Fig.2. It is observed that the the radiator. Similarly, Fig. 2(b) and (c) show the
current is mainly distributed along the edge of the current distribution at 10.9 and 13.3 GHz resonant
monopole M3 and significant current is distributed in frequencies, respectively. A high current coupling is
the corresponding ground. Fig. 2a shows the current observed between monopoles M1 and M3 in
density on the top surfaces of M3 as well as comparison to M2 and M4.

III. RESULTS
The optimized 4×4 wideband MIMO antenna
system is modeled and analyzed using Ansys HFSS.
The reflection coefficient magnitude (S11) of the
antennas and isolation (S21) of the antenna is shown in
Fig. 3. It is observed from Fig. 3(a) that the S11
parameter is below -10 dB for the super UWB
frequency ranging from 2.2 GHz to 20 GHz and more.
The antenna resonates at frequencies 5.9 GHz, 10.9
GHz and 13.3 GHz. Fig. 3(b) depicts the S21 parameter
of the antenna. The isolation throughout the operating
range is mostly more than 20 dB; excluding the interval
3.5 GHz to 4.5 GHz where it is 18.5 dB, and in the
range of 16 GHz to 16.5 GHz where it is 16.11 dB.
Moreover, the maximum value of isolation achieved is
45 dB, which demonstrates the proper isolation between
two antennas. The simulated results of isolation >18.5
Top View Bottom View dB throughout the super UWB range ensures that the
proposed antenna is well suited for MIMO operations
Fig.1. Geometry of the proposed 4×4 wideband across the super UWB spectrum.
MIMO antenna.
 (a)
(b)
Fig. 3. Simulated S-parameters of 4×4 wideband
MIMO antenna (a) S11, S22 parameter (b) S13, S21, S14,
S23 parameter.
Fig. 4 distinguishes the S-parameter of the antenna
with and without slot between monopoles M1 and
M2. The introduction of rectangular slot in the design
improves the bandwidth of the antenna. Initially, the
antenna without slot was having operating frequency
range from 3.3 – 20 GHz; excluding at 15 GHz where
the value is approaching -5 dB, as shown in Fig. 4(a).
It can be observed from Fig. 4(b), that without the slot
the isolation decreases after 14 GHz.
Fig. 5 shows the simulated radiation pattern in E-
Plane (xz-plane) and H-Plane (yz-plane) at resonating
frequencies 5.9 GHz, 10.9 GHz and 13.3 GHz. At the
frequency 5.9 GHz the cross pole is below -20dB
while at 10.9 GHz and 13.3 GHz it is below -15 dB
and -10 dB respectively in E-Plane. In H-Plane for the
same resonating frequencies the maximum values of
the cross-pole are -15 dB, -5 dB and 0 dB
respectively.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4 Simulated S-parameters of 4×4 wideband
MIMO antenna with and without rectangular slot (a)
S11, S22, and (b) S13, S21, S14, S23
The total gain of the antenna at various frequencies
is displayed in Fig. 6. It is observed that the presented
antenna has suitable gain characteristic in its entire
frequency range, and it is having the maximum gain
of 4.7 dB.
To evaluate the time-domain performance of the
proposed antenna, the group delay was measured as
shown in Fig. 7. The group delay variation lies in the
range of 0 - 0.3 n sec during the entire operating
spectrum. It can be concluded that proposed antenna
shows very good time-domain performance.

Fig. 5. Simulated Radiation pattern at (a) 5.9 GHz (b)
10.9 GHz, and (c) 13.3 GHz.
Fig. 6. Simulated gain of the 4×4 wideband MIMO
antenna.
The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is a
crucial parameter to evaluate the behavior of the
MIMO system. The measured ECC is less than 0.03
for the entire super UWB band, which is well below
the acceptable limit as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 7. Simulated group delay of the proposed
antenna.
Fig. 8. Envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) of the
proposed antenna.
IV. CONCLUSION
A compact super UWB MIMO antenna with four
radiating surfaces has been proposed and its
characteristics are studied. The space occupied by the
proposed design is 70 × 80 × 1.6 mm3 which is very
compact by using the substrate Rogers Duroid 5880 of
dielectric constant 2.2. In order to achieve super ultra
wide band (2.2 GHz to 20 GHz) elliptical shaped
monopoles are used in the design. The two radiating
surfaces (M1, M3) are on the upper side of the
substrate whereas the other two radiating surfaces
(M2, M4) are on the bottom side of the substrate to
enhance the isolation. The proposed antenna also
demonstrates good antenna behaviour in terms of S-
parameter, surface current distribution, ECC, radiation
pattern, group delay, and gain. Therefore, the
proposed antenna is a suitable choice for wideband
application system.
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