Design and Optimization of a Compact Super-Wideband MIMO Antenna with High Isolation and Gain for 5G Applications

Abstract

This paper presents a super-wideband multiple-input multiple-output (SWB MIMO) antenna with low profile, low mutual coupling, high gain, and compact size for microwave and millimeter-wave (mm-wave) fifth-generation (5G) applications. A single antenna is a simple elliptical-square shape with a small physical size of 20 × 20 × 0.787 mm3. The combination of both square and elliptical shapes results in an exceptionally broad impedance bandwidth spanning from 3.4 to 70 GHz. Antenna dimensions are optimized using the trust-region algorithm to enhance its impedance bandwidth and maintain the gain within a predefined limit across the entire band. For that purpose, regularized merit function is defined, which permits to control both the single antenna reflection response and gain. Subsequently, the SWB MIMO system is constructed with four radiators arranged orthogonally. This arrangement results in high isolation, better than 20 dB, over a frequency band from 3.4 to 70 GHz band. Further, the system achieves an average gain of approximately 7 dB below 45 GHz and a maximum gain equal to 12 dB for 70 GHz. The system exhibits excellent diversity performance throughout the entire bandwidth, as evidenced by the low envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) (<3 × 10−3), total active reflection coefficient (TARC) (≤−10 dB), and channel capacity loss (CCL) (<0.3 bit/s/Hz) metrics, as well as the high diversity gain (DG) of approximately 10 dB. Experimental validation of the developed SWB MIMO demonstrates a good matching between the measurements and simulations.