IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

8, 2009

1107

A Compact Planar MIMO Antenna System of Four Elements With Similar Radiation Characteristics and Isolation Structure
Hui Li, Student Member, IEEE, Jiang Xiong, Student Member, IEEE, and Sailing He, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractA compact planar multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) antenna system of four elements with similar radiation characteristics is proposed for the whole 2.4-GHz WLAN band. It consists of two proximity-coupled fed microstrip square ring patch antennas and two 4 microstrip slot antennas of the same linear polarization. These two types of antennas are printed on different sides of the substrate to reduce mutual coupling. With a novel isolation structure etched on the ground plane of the FR4 substrate, high port isolation (below 25 dB) and good MIMO performance are achieved. The overall lateral size of the MIMO 0 48 , and good impedance matching system is only 0 64 (S11 10 dB) is achieved across the operating band for all the antenna elements. Full spherical radiation patterns are measured for the MIMO system, showing similar radiation characteristics, and the gains are above 2.3 dB across the operating band. Index TermsCompact antenna, isolation technology, multipleinputmultiple-output (MIMO) systems, wireless LAN.

I. INTRODUCTION N MODERN wireless communication systems, high data rate is required over band-limited channels. Multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) systems that utilize multiple antennas to increase channel capacity without sacricing additional spectrum or transmitted power have received a growing amount of interest in recent years. Up to date, most MIMO antenna systems with more than two antennas are three-dimensional rather than planar [1], [2]. In practice, low-prole planar antennas are more preferred so that antenna radiators can be easily integrated with other printed circuit board (PCB) components in portable devices. In addition, it is sometimes desirable that all the elements have simultaneously good impedance matching, similar radiation patterns, and the same polarization. However, due to the integration of several closely packed antennas on a single PCB with very limited space, mutual coupling between elements is severe, and this
Manuscript received July 14, 2009; revised September 10, 2009. First published October 13, 2009; current version published October 27, 2009. This work was supported in part by VINNOVA for IMT advanced and beyond. H. Li, and J. Xiong are with the Center for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China (e-mail: lihui@coer.zju. edu.cn; xiongjiang@coer.zju.edu.cn). S. He is with the Center for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China, and also with the Division of Electromagnetic Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden (e-mail: sailing@kth.se). 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.2009.2034110

leads to rather poor antenna and system performance (low total efciency and channel gain). Many techniques have been proposed for diminishing the mutual couplings of antennas [3][11]. In [3], a compact decoupling network for enhancing the port isolation between two closely spaced antennas is proposed. Low mutual coupling can also be achieved through specic ground structure [4], [5], the neutralization technique [6], [7], electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) lters [8], and coupling elements [9]. This research works on planar MIMO antenna structures focus on the isolation improvement for two-element systems. When the number of antenna elements increases, mutual couplings become more complicated and high degree of isolation is much more difcult to achieve. Guterman et al. have proposed a MIMO system for WLAN application with six radiating elements [10], but its lateral size is a bit large. More recently, a compact planar MIMO antenna system with four radiating elements has been proposed in [11]. However, the measured isolation between antennas is only dB, not low enough by the well-accepted dB). standards (lower than In this letter, a compact planar MIMO antenna system of four elements with high port isolation is proposed. Two types of antenna elements printed on different sides of the substrate are used in the structure for better isolation performance. In addition, a new isolation structure composed of a series of slits etched in the ground plane is proposed. It has further improved the mutual coupling by 10 dB. In Section II, the geometry and parameters of the structure are described. The proposed isolation structure is analyzed, and its mechanism for improving the isolation is explained in Section III. The measured antenna system performances, including matching, port isolation, and MIMO performance, are given in Section IV. Finally, some conclusions are given in Section V. II. ANTENNA DESIGN The geometry and parameters of the proposed four-port antenna system are shown in Fig. 1. The antenna system consists of two types of radiating elements. One is the quarter-wavelength microstrip slot antenna [1] (antennas 2 and 3 in Fig. 1), and the other is the proximity-fed square ring patch antenna (antennas 1 and 4 in Fig. 1). The slot antenna is etched on the ground plane (the bottom side of the substrate) and simply fed by a microstrip line. Its total length is 18.75 mm. The microstrip square ring , is more compact patch, with a lateral size of only than the conventional rectangular patch. It is proximity-fed by a T-shaped strip on the FR4 substrate (with permittivity of

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 8, 2009

Fig. 2. Frequency responses of the isolation structure connected with two microstrip lines.

Fig. 1. Geometry of the compact MIMO antenna system with four elements: : mm, W mm, (a) side view, (b) top view, (c) bottom view. (L L mm W mm, h : mm, h : mm, L : mm, mm). Lc mm, W

= 22 = 30

=7 =1

= 1 864

= 37 7 =08

= 25 = 18 75

4.4). This feeding structure is simple and easy for impedance matching. Good impedance matching with the 50- microstrip line can be simply achieved by adjusting the height of the ring patch above the feeding strip [ in Fig. 1(a)]. Another reason for choosing the T-shaped strip is for better cross polarization. The electric current of opposite direction along the two arms of the T-shaped microstrip feed induces symmetric current distribution on the shorter edge of the ring. Therefore, the electric eld along x-direction in far-eld range can be partly canceled, and a pure y-direction polarization with low cross polarization is expected. There are two sources of mutual coupling: the inherent edge coupling between antenna elements and current owing on the shared ground. Here, we make the neighboring antennas on different sides of the substrate to avoid inherent edge coupling between them. The current of the patch is mainly distributed on the upper ring patch, while the current of the slot antennas is mainly on the ground plane. This way, mutual coupling between antenna elements can be reduced. In order to curb the electric current owing on the shared ground, we etched a series of slots in the ground as an isolation structure between the slot antenna and the ring patch antenna [see Fig. 1(c)]. Specic analysis of this structure will be described in the following section. III. PROPOSED ISOLATION STRUCTURE The proposed isolation structure consists of several slits (with and width ) interleaved with strips, which can be length considered as a bandstop lter. To demonstrate the bandstop effect of the isolation structure, similar to the method conducted in [4], a structure composed of seven slits on the FR4 substrate with the same dimensions as in our four-element antenna system [see Fig. 1(c)] is examined. The isolation structure is connected

with two transmission lines to test its reection and transmission characteristics. The isolation structure and its simulated S-parameters are shown in Fig. 2. According to the results of S11 and S21, one sees that most of the energy is reected back to port 1 and little is transmitted to the other port across the WLAN band (2.42.485 GHz). Thus, little electric current can be coupled from one antenna to the others, resulting in an improved isolation. It is noted that the periphery (except the open end at the edge of the ground plane) of the slits are all connected with metal, and this makes sure that the structure shown in the inset of Fig. 2 is an exact extraction of that used in our antenna system. In Fig. 2, a stop band from 1.95 to 2.85 GHz is observed. Compared to the ground plane structure in [4], the proposed structure reduces the number of slits by half, thus the structure occupies less space and has less inuence on the antenna performance. To better illustrate the working mechanism of the proposed isolation structure, electric current distributions on the ground plane of the antenna system with and without the isolation structure are shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b), respectively. In this comparison, antenna 2 (one of the two slot antennas) is excited, and other antennas are terminated with the standard 50- matching loads. In Fig. 3, one sees that, without the isolation structure, strong current is coupled from the excited slot antenna to the ground below the patch and also to the other slot antenna. In the presence of the isolation structure in Fig. 3(b), the electric current is trapped around the series of slits and cannot ow to other neighboring radiators. This greatly helps to reduce the mutual coupling between antennas. This isolation structure is especially useful in cases where strong current on the ground plane is the main cause of mutual coupling. With this isolation structure, the isolation of the proposed antenna system can be improved by 10 dB without increasing interspace between radiators. To specify the effectiveness of the isolation structure in the ground, the simulated S-parameters of the antennas with and without the isolation structure are shown in Fig. 4. Considering the symmetry of the diagonally placed radiators (antennas 1 and 4 are the same microstrip square ring patch antennas, and antennas 2 and 3 are the same quarter-

LI et al.: A COMPACT PLANAR MIMO ANTENNA SYSTEM OF FOUR ELEMENTS WITH SIMILAR RADIATION CHARACTERISTICS AND ISOLATION STRUCTURE 1109

Fig. 3. Magnitude of current ow normalized to the maximum value on the ground. (a) The antenna system without isolation structure. (b) The proposed antenna system.

wavelength slot antennas) and their locations on the PCB, some curves overlap with each other, and consequently we only need to show six curves in the gure. In Fig. 4(a), the simulated isodB, which is already better than the prelations are below dB in [11]. Furthermore, with our isolation viously reported structure, the isolation performance shown in Fig. 4(b) is imdB. Such level of mutual coupling is proved to be below rather low for most current MIMO systems. The etched slits of the isolation structure do not affect the antenna system much except for two minor inuences. One is that the bandwidth of the proposed antenna is slightly reduced, yet it still well satises the WLAN band requirements. The reduction of bandwidth is mainly because part of the current ows to the series of slits. The other is that the physical length ( and in Fig. 1) of the slot antenna should be adjusted during the process of parameter optimization; otherwise, its operating frequency will shift a little due to the existence of the isolation structure. IV. ANTENNAS PERFORMANCE The proposed four-port antenna system is measured with a two-port Advantest R3765C Network Analyzer. The measured S-parameters are shown in Fig. 5, with a fabricated prototype shown in the inset. The relative position of the antennas is indicated in the gure (see also Fig. 1(b) for the top view of the antenna structure). The mutual couplings between any two radiators are obtained in such a way that these two radiators are connected with the vector network analyzer and the other two radiators are terminated with the standard 50- matching loads. Due to the symmetry of the proposed structure and for the clarity of the gure, only six characteristic curves (represented by S11, S22, S12, S13, S14, and S23) are shown in Fig. 5 (as mentioned in the previous section). The measured results show that the antenna system covers the band of 2.42.5 GHz, with S11 below dB. Due to fabrication tolerance, the resonant frequency of the slot antennas shifts slightly toward higher frequency. It dB between any two shows that very good isolation (below ports) is achieved, even better than that given by the simulation. This is due to insertion loss and material loss of FR4. The full spherical radiation patterns are measured in Lenovos anechoic chamber and are shown in Fig. 6 with a top view. Four

Fig. 4. Simulated S-parameters of the antenna system (a) without the proposed isolation structure and (b) with the isolation structure.

Fig. 5. Measured S-parameters of the proposed antenna system. (only six representative curves are shown due to the symmetry of the structure).

antennas show similar broadside radiation patterns. The slight difference is due to different antenna types and locations on the

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 8, 2009

used in the structure to achieve good isolation. To further reduce the mutual coupling, a series of slits are etched in the ground, enhancing the isolation level by 10 dB. This isolation structure can be used where current on the ground is the main cause of mutual coupling. All four antennas can cover the WLAN band and show similar radiation characteristics, including patterns and dB. Full polarization. The measured isolation is lower than spherical radiation patterns are measured, and the peak gains are 2.84 and 3.52 dB for a square ring patch antenna and a slot antenna, respectively, indicating both good antenna and MIMO performance.

Fig. 6. Measured full spherical radiation patterns at 2.45 GHz for (a) antenna 1, (b) antenna 2, (c) antenna 3, and (d) antenna 4.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors sincerely appreciate the help of the Lenovo Company, Shanghai, China, for providing full spherical radiation measurement.

REFERENCES
[1] C. Y. Chiu, J. B. Yan, and R. D. Murch, Compact three-port orthogonally polarized MIMO antennas, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 619622, 2007. [2] C. Y. Chiu, J. B. Yan, and R. D. Murch, 24-port and 36-port antenna cubes suitable for MIMO wireless communications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 11701176, Apr. 2008. [3] S. C. Chen, Y. S. Wang, and S. J. Chung, A decoupling technique for increasing the port isolation between two strongly coupled antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 12, pp. 36503658, Dec. 2008. [4] C. Y. Chiu, C. H. Cheng, R. D. Murch, and C. R. Rowell, Reduction of mutual coupling between closely-packed antenna elements, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 55, no. 6, pp. 17321738, Jun. 2007. [5] Y. chung, S. Jeon, D. Ahn, J. Choi, and T. Itoh, High isolation dualpolarized patch antenna using integrated defected ground structure, IEEE Microw. Wireless Compom. Lett., vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 46, Jan. 2004. [6] A. Diallo, C. Luxey, P. L. Thuc, R. Staraj, and G. Kossiavas, Enhanced two-antenna structures for universal mobile telecommunications system diversity terminals, IET Microw. Antennas Propag., vol. 1, pp. 93101, Feb. 2008. [7] C. Li, S. Chen, and P. Hsu, Integrated dual planar inverted-F antenna with enhanced isolation, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 8, pp. 963965, 2009. [8] L. I. Sanchez, J. L. V. Roy, and E. R. Iglesias, High isolation proximity coupled multilayer patch antenna for dual-frequency operation, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 11801183, Apr. 2008. [9] A. S. K. Mak, C. R. Rowell, and R. D. Murch, Isolation enhancement between two closely packed antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 11, pp. 34113419, Nov. 2008. [10] J. Guterman, A. Moreira, and C. Peixeiro, Integration of omnidirectional wrapped microstrip antennas into laptops, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 5, pp. 141144, 2006. [11] C. Y. Chiu and R. D. Murch, Compact four-port antenna suitable for portable MIMO devices, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 7, pp. 142144, 2008.

Fig. 7. Computed envelope correlation coefcients between antennas.

ground, which is benecial to the isolation between antenna elements. The measured gains of patch antennas and slot antennas are above 2.3 and 2.8 dB, respectively, across the WLAN band. The set of correlation among signals received by the target antennas is a critical factor for a MIMO system. Envelope correlation coefcients are computed from full spherical E-eld radiation patterns and are shown in Fig. 7. One sees that the envelope correlation coefcient is always below 0.022, indicating a good MIMO performance of the proposed antenna system. V. CONCLUSION A compact planar MIMO antenna system of four elements has been designed and analyzed in this letter. Two types of antenna elements printed on different sides of the substrate are