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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 11, 2012

A Compact Ultrawideband MIMO Antenna With WLAN Band-Rejected Operation for Mobile Devices
Jae-Min Lee, Ki-Baek Kim, Hong-Kyun Ryu, and Jong-Myung Woo, Member, IEEE
AbstractThis letter presents an ultrawideband multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) antenna that covers the WCDMA (1.922.17 GHz), WiMAX (2.3, 2.5 GHz), WLAN (2.4 GHz), and UWB (3.110.6 GHz) bands for wireless device applications. The proposed antenna consists of a printed folded monopole antenna coupled with a parasitic inverted-L element, with an open stub inserted in the antenna to reject the WLAN (5.155.85 GHz) band that interferes with the UWB band. These two antennas are symmetrically arranged on a mobile device substrate. The 10-dB bandwidth of the designed antenna is 1.8511.9 GHz without the WLAN band 5.155.85 GHz. and the envelope correlation coefcient are lower than 17.2 dB and 0.18 in the operating bands, respectively. The size of the antenna is mm . Index TermsBand-rejected antennas, mobile devices, multipleinputmultiple-output (MIMO) antennas, wideband antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION N COMMUNICATION systems, multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) technology, which involves the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver, is used to signicantly enhance the data transmission performance and channel capacity [1]. Recently, MIMO has been adapted to mobile phones, which use various communication technologies such as WCDMA, WiMAX, WLAN, and UWB [2], in order to realize high-speed data transmission. Obviously, such an application requires a compact wide-band MIMO antenna because of the limited space available in wireless devices. A MIMO antenna should be of the printed type because it can then t within the small wireless device manufactured nowadays while still providing high isolation characteristics with a low correlation coefcient. Various multiband MIMO antennas have been proposed for mobile phone applications. A printed MIMO antenna based on a modied monopole antenna with a parasitic element, which covers various communication bands except the UWB band, was reported in [3]. A quad-band MIMO antenna having a threedimensional structure has also been proposed for WLAN and WiMAX bands [4]. For a wideband MIMO antenna, monopole antennas with two bent slits were designed in [5]. The operating
Manuscript received April 16, 2012; revised June 06, 2012 and July 24, 2012; accepted August 18, 2012. Date of publication August 21, 2012; date of current version August 31, 2012. The authors are with the Department of Radio Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Korea (e-mail: leefor920@cnu.ac.kr; kbkim@cnu.ac.kr; hkryu@cnu.ac.kr; jmwoo@cnu.ac.kr). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this letter are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/LAWP.2012.2214431

bandwidth of this antenna is 2.46.55 GHz. Due to the bent slits, this antenna occupied a large space. A UWB-MIMO antenna reported in [6] is difcult to integrate in modern mobile devices because of its large size. This antenna covers only the UWB band and does not reject the WLAN (5.155.85 GHz) band that interferes with the UWB band. This letter presents a compact ultrawideband MIMO antenna for mobile device applications. The proposed antenna covers the WCDMA (1.922.17 GHz), WiMAX (2.3, 2.5 GHz), WLAN (2.4 GHz), and UWB (3.110.6 GHz) bands. It consists of a printed folded monopole antenna coupled with a parasitic inverted-L element [7]. The antenna is modied to cover the WCDMA band, and a short stub is inserted in it to reject the WLAN (5.155.85 GHz) band that interferes with the UWB band. For the MIMO technology, the designed antennas are symmetrically arrayed on the top part of the wireless device substrate. In addition, parasitic meander lines are located between the arrayed antennas to improve the isolation. The designed MIMO antenna has a compact size, a good radiation efciency, and broad bandwidth. It can block WLAN band by using a simple open stub, and it shows high isolation performance. Section II describes the proposed antenna in detail, and it also presents simulation and measurement results obtained for this antenna. II. ANTENNA DESIGN Fig. 1(a) shows the structure of the proposed antenna printed on the top part of a mobile phone ground plane. The size of mm , and FR-4 ( , the ground plane is mm) is used as the substrate. Two ultrawidethickness band antennas are symmetrically arrayed, and parasitic meander lines are located between them on the substrate to improve the isolation. The proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 1(b). We previously designed the ultrawideband antenna that consists of a printed folded monopole antenna coupled with a parasitic inverted-L element [7]. This antenna cannot cover the WCDMA band. Therefore, the length of the inverted-L element was lengthened to cover the WCDMA band, and the gap between the folded monopole and the inverted-L element was changed for impedance matching in this study. In addition, an open stub is inserted in the printed folded monopole to reject the WLAN (5.155.85 GHz) band, which interferes with the UWB band, while maintaining the size of the antenna. The overall length of the open stub from the feed point is 17 mm. This is determined of 5.5 GHz because it has high input to be approximately open circuit. impedance by operating

1536-1225/$31.00 2012 IEEE

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Fig. 2. Simulated according to the change of meander lines. (a) No meander and meanders. (b) Connection line and shot monopole.

Fig. 1. Structure of the proposed antenna. (a) Overall view of antenna. (b) Radiation element on left-hand side. (c) Meander lines for improving isolation. (d) Fabricated prototype antenna.

at 10.6 GHz from 10 dB to 18.3 dB. The length of the line is 3.8 mm, and its electrical length is about a quarter of the wavelength on the FR-4 substrate. The overall size of the parasitic element used to improve isolation is mm . In this way, the of the antenna was lowered below about 15 dB. The overall dimensions of the antenna are mm (where is a wavelength of 1.85 GHz). The fabricated prototype antenna is shown in Fig. 1(d). III. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS The simulated and measured -parameters are shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b). CST Microwave Studio 2010 was used for the simulation. The two results are in good agreement. The input impedance was well matched, and WLAN band-rejection was observed. The 10-dB bandwidth was measured as 1.8511.9 GHz (6.43:1), except for the rejected WLAN band, which is 700 MHz (5.155.85 GHz, above 10-dB return loss). This antenna covers the WCDMA (1.922.17 GHz), WiMAX (2.3, 2.5 GHz), WLAN (2.4 GHz), and UWB (3.110.6 GHz) bands. of the antennas was measured to be lower than 17.2 dB in 1.9210.6 GHz. The envelope correlation coefcient (ECC) represents the diversity performance of the MIMO antenna. It was calculated using the -parameters [8]. ECC should be less than 0.5 for a good diversity performance [9]. The ECC is lower than 0.18 in 1.9210.6 GHz in both the simulation and the measurement. This value is enough to make a good diversity performance.

Fig. 1(c) shows the parasitic meander lines added to the top middle part of the substrate to improve the isolation. These lines consist of symmetric meander lines, a connection line, and a short parasitic line. The basic technique of improving the isolation in MIMO antennas is the placing of a quarter-wavelength line between antennas to act as a reector. However, the quarter-wavelength line is 39 mm at 1.92 GHz. It is too long to place in the small space of the mobile device. Therefore, we reduced the quarter-wavelength line by using the meander line. The simulated by the change to the meander lines is shown in Fig. 2. The symmetric meander lines improve isolation in 1.822.89 GHz as shown in Fig. 2(a). This is because the meander lines block the current on the ground plane between the antennas, and the lines act as a reector for the antennas. As shown in Fig. 2(b), at 3.2 GHz was lowered from 12.7 to 14.8 dB due to the connection line between meanders. The connection line changes the current distribution on the meander lines at 3.2 GHz. The short parasitic line reduces

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 11, 2012

Fig. 3. -parameter and ECC of the proposed antenna. (a) (c) ECC.

. (b)

Figs. 4 and 5 show the simulated and measured radiation patterns of only the left-hand side antenna for several frequencies (1.92, 4, 5.5, 7, 10 GHz). This is because the two antennas have a symmetrical structure and the same radiation characteristics. Good agreement is observed between the simulation and the measurement. The levels of all radiation patterns at 5.5 GHz are low because of band-rejected characteristics. Figs. 4(a) and 5(a) show in the -plane. The pattern is slightly tilted toward 270 at 1.92, 4, 7, and 10 GHz. This is because the parasitic meander lines in the center of the two antennas act as a reector. The radiation level at 90 for 1.92 and 4 GHz in Figs. 4(b) and 5(b) was lowered because of the current of the ground plane. Other frequency (7 and 10 GHz) patterns showed an omnidirectional

Fig. 4. Simulated radiation patterns. (a) -plane. (c) ; in the -plane.

; in the

-plane. (b)

in the

pattern. In Figs. 4(c) and 5(c), the radiation pattern of in the -plane is tilted to 220 because of the position of the antenna and the ground current. Fig. 6 shows the simulated and measured peak gain and total efciency in the operating band. In the rejected band of 5.5 GHz, the peak gain is 2.27 dBi, and the total efciency

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Fig. 6. Peak gain and total efciency.

performance. The discrepancy between the simulation and the measurement was observed for the total efciency. The discrepancy especially became larger above 6 GHz. The total efciency was measured in an anechoic chamber, and it was carried out by using the integration method on the spherical pattern. The discrepancy is caused by gain error of the standard antenna, mounting position of the test antenna, and the mast of the positioner. IV. CONCLUSION This letter proposed an ultrawideband MIMO antenna that covers the WCDMA (1.922.17 GHz), WiMAX (2.3, 2.5 GHz), WLAN (2.4 GHz), and UWB (3.110.6 GHz) bands for mobile phone applications. The proposed antenna is based on a printed folded monopole antenna coupled with a parasitic inverted-L element. The antenna was modied to enhance the bandwidth and reject the WLAN (5.155.85 GHz) band. These two antennas are symmetrically arrayed on a mobile device substrate, with parasitic meander lines added between them to improve the isolation. The proposed antenna is thus considered promising for wireless device applications from the viewpoint of its compact size and good radiation performance. REFERENCES [1] G. J. Foschini, On limits of wireless communications in a fading environment when using multiple antennas, Wireless Pers. Commun., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 311335, 1998. [2] T. Kaiser, Z. Feng, and E. Dimitrov, An overview of ultra-wide-band systems with MIMO, Proc. IEEE, vol. 97, no. 2, pp. 285312, Feb. 2009. [3] Q.-X. Chu and J.-F. Chu, A compact wider dual-band MIMO antenna array for mobile phone, in Proc. IEEE Wireless Inf. Technol. Syst. Conf., Honolulu, HI, Aug. 2010, pp. 14. [4] R. A. Bhatti, J.-H. Choi, and S.-O. Park, Quad-band MIMO antenna array for potable wireless communication terminals, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 8, pp. 129132, 2009. [5] J.-F Li, Q.-X. Chu, and T.-G. Huang, A compact wideband MIMO antenna with two novel slits, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 482489, Feb. 2012. [6] A. Najam, Y. Duroc, and S. Tedjni, UWB-MIMO antenna with novel stub structure, Prog. Electromagn. Res. C, vol. 19, pp. 245257, Feb. 2011. [7] K.-B. Kim, H.-K. Ryu, and J.-M. Woo, Compact wideband folded monopole antenna coupled with parasitic inverted-L element for laptop computer applications, Electron. Lett., vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 301303, Mar. 2011. [8] S. Blanch, J. Romeu, and I. Corbella, Exact representation of antenna system diversity performance from input parameter description, Electron. Lett., vol. 39, no. 9, pp. 705707, May 2003. [9] M. Han and J. Choi, Small-size printed strip MIMO antenna for next generation mobile handset application, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 348352, Feb. 2011.

Fig. 5. Measured radiation patterns. (a) -plane. (c) in the -plane.

in the

-plane. (b)

in the

is measured as 16.72%. The average peak gain and total efciency, with exception of the rejected band, are 4.96 dBi and 91.36%, respectively. The designed antenna has good radiation