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[16] B. OConnor et al., Fiber shaped organic light emitting device, Adv.
Mater., vol. 19, no. 22, pp. 38973900, Nov. 2007.
[17] B. OConnor, K. P. Pipe, and M. Shtein, Fiber based organic photovoltaic devices, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 92, no. 19, May 2008.
[18] A. Yadav, K. P. Pipe, and M. Shtein, Fiber-based flexible thermoelectric power generator, J. Power Sources, vol. 172, no. 2, pp. 909913,
Jan. 2008.

A Compact MIMO Array of Planar End-Fire Antennas for

WLAN Applications
Antonio-Daniele Capobianco, Filippo Maria Pigozzo,
Antonio Assalini, Michele Midrio, Stefano Boscolo, and
Francesco Sacchetto
AbstractAn approach to the design of multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) arrays exploiting planar directive antennas is presented. It is well
known that pattern orthogonality is a key aspect to reach low correlation,
and thus to improve channel capacity in rich multipath environments. However, attention is often focused on reducing mutual coupling rather than
optimizing the active element patterns. In this communication a planar
MIMO array of printed Yagi-Uda antennas with integrated balun is presented. The end-fire radiation mechanism of the Yagi-Uda is exploited to
obtain a triangular array of three sectoral antennas. This allows to achieve
nearly orthogonal patterns, while keeping a low mutual coupling among radiating elements. A properly shaped ground at the feeding points allows to
increase the isolation between the antennas, even in such a compact layout.
A laboratory model has been characterized experimentally, and the effectiveness of the proposed design in terms of theoretical achievable capacity
is demonstrated through numerical simulations considering IEEE 802.11n
multipath fading channel models.
Index TermsAntenna arrays, directive antennas, information rates,
multipath channels, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems,
wireless LAN.

I. INTRODUCTION
The design of antenna elements to be employed in multiple-input
multiple-output (MIMO) arrays is recognized as a key feature to reach
high channel capacity. However, current implementations often employ
uniform linear arrays (ULA) of dipoles or monopoles (i.e., nearly omnidirectional radiators) with quite electrically large spacings (i.e., large
fractions of the free space wavelength), in order to reduce the mutual
coupling and to minimize the correlation between signals at the antenna
ports. To this aim, a half-wavelength inter-element spacing is quite
common. Such a relatively large distance among radiating elements
thus allows to exploit the principle of spatial diversity to improve the
channel capacity, reasonably neglecting the effects of pattern distortion
due to mutual coupling. Nevertheless, in order to reach very compact
MIMO array configurations, where antennas are close to each other,
Manuscript received October 15, 2010; revised December 21, 2010; accepted
February 17, 2011. Date of publication July 12, 2011; date of current version
September 02, 2011. This work was supported in part by the University of
Padova, project CPDA 081514/08.
A. D. Capobianco, F. M. Pigozzo, and A. Assalini are with the Department
of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy (e-mail:
adc@dei.unipd.it).
M. Midrio, S. Boscolo, and F. Sacchetto are with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Gestionale e Meccanica, University of Udine, Udine 33100,
Italy.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2011.2161557

Fig. 1. Layout of the proposed array (top and bottom layers). The whole structure is 55 mm 48 mm large. Each antenna is 22 mm 22 mm large and lays
on the side of a equilateral triangle. The separation among the feeding points is
5.77 mm (0:1 in free space at the 5.25 GHz operation frequency).

the pattern distortion can no longer be neglected, and the displacement

between antennas will result not only in space diversity but also in an
induced pattern diversity. Therefore, to account for this effect, the antenna active pattern [1] (i.e., the pattern produced by the excitation of
one antenna when the others are closed on a matched load) instead of
the isolated antenna pattern has to be employed in the calculation of the
correlation coefficients [2] of the transmitter/receiver array. Nevertheless, practical MIMO array designs often focus on the isolated element,
and the active pattern resulting from the interaction among antennas is
optimized in a second step, by tuning, for instance, the relative orientation among radiators [3]. More sophisticated designs aim to achieve
pattern orthogonality in different ways, for example by exciting orthogonal modes within the same geometrical structure in co-located patch
antennas [4] or in spirals [5]. Also pattern synthesis based on properly
tailored current distribution in a theoretical array [6], or reconfigurable
planar arrays made of combined Landstorfer and Yagi-Uda antennas
have recently been proposed [7].
In this communication, we present a simple and easy-to-implement
solution to achieve nearly orthogonal patterns. Starting from a sectoral
isolated element pattern, such as the one of an end-fire radiator, angular
diversity is exploited. In particular, a very compact, printed Yagi-Uda
antenna with integrated balun has been developed [8]. Then, a MIMO
array has been obtained in a triangular configuration (Fig. 1).
In the following, we present design criteria for optimizing both the
single antenna element and the overall array. A laboratory model has
been realized and experimentally characterized in terms of return loss
and active element pattern. The effectiveness of the proposed layout
is assessed against the resulting channel capacity with IEEE 802.11n
propagation models [9], in the 5.15 GHz5.35 GHz operational band.
II. ARRAY LAYOUT
In this section we describe the structure of the proposed MIMO antenna array.
A. Single Antenna Design
The use of non isotropic antennas as a MIMO array element has been
recently investigated through channel measurements in [10] with patch
antennas. These kind of radiators, however, are backed by a ground plane
which is orthogonal to the direction of the main beam, thus preventing
their use in a low-profile configuration. Aiming to realize a directive pattern in the horizontal plane, we developed a planar Yagi-Uda antenna
with an integrated balun that is 22 mm long (less than half a wavelength in free space at the 5.25 GHz operation frequency). A printed
Yagi-Uda antenna has been presented in [11] where a broadband microstrip-to-coplanar strips (CPS) transition is employed. The ground

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3463

Fig. 2. Schematic of the proposed planar Yagi-Uda antenna (top and bottom
layers are depicted in the right and left panel, respectively). Dimensions in mil;b
;c
: ;d
; ls
; ws
;w
limeters are: a

= 6 = 3 = 0 5 1 = 3 = 22 = 22 1 =
1; a2 = 3; b2 = 0:5; d2 = 4:25; d3 = 5; d4 = 4; lg = 5:4; l1 = 20:5; l2 =
16:4; l3 = 11:28; s = 0:5; wg = 8; w0 = 1:6; w2 = 1. The ground plane
extension (contained within dashed lines) is delimited by a Y-shaped slot whose
branches are spaced by 120 degrees and are 1 mm in width, as shown in Fig. 1.

plane below the transition acts also as the Yagi-Uda reflector. Here we
propose a layout consisting of a different microstrip-to-CPS transition
with a shaped ground that allows for both the reduction of the metallization near the feeding point and the optimization of the reflector element
(Fig. 2). A Y-shaped slot on a face of the substrate prevents neighbor
antenna ground planes to overlap each other when three elements of this
kind are employed in a triangular array configuration (Fig. 1). Indeed,
every single radiator has its own ground plane, without electrical continuity with its neighbor. This has been done to improve antenna-ports
isolation. Moreover, instead of connecting the driven element of the
Yagi-Uda antenna directly to the feeding microstrip, as in [11], we excite the entire structure by proximity coupling, using an open ended microstrip above a rectangular hole in the ground plane. It is worth mentioning that reflector, driven element and director are on the same face
of the substrate. We performed the optimization of the antenna and its
feeding line through CST Microwave Studio [12]. As a first design step,
the effectiveness of the transition was studied with and without the reflector extensions (l1 in Fig. 2). Simulations have shown that the return
loss and bandwidth are very sensitive to the ratio a=b and to the magnitude of the cut c, as well as the ground hole dimensions a2 and b2, once
the a=b ratio has been fixed. We used a 50
impedance microstrip line
on a Rogers RO3010 (r = 10) substrate of height h = 1:28 mm that
converts to a balanced CPS line with 100
characteristic impedance. As
a second design step, we set an initial length and width of the driven element alone, in order to achieve resonance at the desired center frequency
along with an appreciable bandwidth. As a third step, we included the
director element and performed a sweep on the distance from the active
element. This had been done for different values of the director length.
Particular attention was devoted to reach high directivity and reduced
back lobe magnitude, since the coupling with the neighbor antennas is expected to decrease with a reduction of backward radiated energy. To this
end, the introduction of the reflector further improves the back lobe suppression. The final step consisted in optimizing the entire structure with
fixed CPS line length. The impedance matching was realized by acting
again on the a=b ratio of the transition and on the driven element-to-director distance. A further adjustment is obtainable by multiplying the
lengths of the three dipoles by a common scale factor.
B. Array Behavior
The MIMO array is obtained by placing three printed Yagi-Uda antennas in a equilateral triangular configuration, see Fig. 1. As expected,

Fig. 3. Measured E active element pattern for Yagi-Uda 1, 2 and 3 (normalized values) in the azimuthal plane. The cross polarized component E , which
is not reported in the plot for the sake of clearness, is below 0.1.

Fig. 4. Photo of a laboratory model of the proposed MIMO array.

the sectoral radiating properties of each element, as well as the absence

of a common ground plane, results in an almost undistorted active pattern (Fig. 3), that is very low mutual coupling is achieved. This result
is important, as typically the active patterns are strongly deformed by
mutual coupling in small arrays. Moreover, there is no need for additional matching line as the scattering parameter jsii j of each antenna
is well below the 010 dB level, along with low values of the transmission coefficients jsij j in the desired 5.15 GHz5.35 GHz band. This
was confirmed by measurements on a laboratory model, employing
a Quickform-type coaxial cable at the desired antenna port, and connecting the others to 50
(matched) surface mounted device (SMD)
resistors (Fig. 4). Simulated and measured values of js11 j are shown in
Fig. 5. The active element patterns (Fig. 3) exhibit a directivity of 6 dBi
and a weak overlap in the azimuthal plane, i.e., they are nearly orthogonal. Therefore, as shown in the following, a high channel capacity is
expected, in a rich scattering environment.
III. PERFORMANCE IN 2D MIMO SCENARIOS
The proposed array is intended to be used in rich multipath scenarios.
Its performance is evaluated in terms of the correlation coefficient and
the ergodic channel capacity.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011

Fig. 5. Simulated (dashed line) and measured (solid line) js j of the Yagi-Uda
antenna 1 in array configuration, when the others are terminated by a 50
load.

The correlation coefficient between the generic ith and j th antenna

of the array, at either transmitter or receiver side, is given by [2]

ij

( ) ( ) ( ) + p ()E ()E ()

3

p  Ei  Ej 

i

i2 j2

j

Ek

k

k

(1)

= p () E () 2 + p () E () 2 d; k = i; j (2)

() and E () are, respectively, the components  and  of the


The channel matrix H is calculated as

d

where
k

Fig. 6. Ergodic capacity over a 1000 channel realization as a function of SNR,

for a uniform PAS p() = 1=2 in the [0; 2] range (single-cluster flat-fading
channel model).

(3)

where H iid is a 3 2 3 matrix whose entries are independent and identically distributed complex Gaussian random variables with unitary
power. The ergodic channel capacity C for a given average signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) value results

k

electric field radiated by the k th antenna, in the azimuthal plane, intended as active element pattern in the far-field region [1]. The co-polar
component is assumed to be the  component of the field, which lays
on the plane parallel to the substrate.  is the cross-polar discrimination, p () and p () are the power azimuth spectrum (PAS) of the
two polarizations, in the azimuthal plane, and, finally, ( 1 )3 denotes the
complex conjugate. In our analysis we assume  = 1: this means that
the scenario provides half of the received power with the  polarization and half of the received power with the  polarization. In addition,
we consider p () = p () = p(). These assumptions are widely
accepted in the literature for transmissions in rich multipath environments [13]. Since a careful evaluation of the correlation between antennas requires the complex-valued active element patterns, simulated
values have been used in the computation of (1) and (2).
For a first performance evaluation, we consider a uniform PAS
p() = 1=2 in the interval [0; 2 ) and a flat Rayleigh fading channel
with a single-cluster. The correlation matrices RTx and RRx for the
transmitter and the receiver have elements of position (i; j ) given
by (1), with parameters depending on the array adopted at either the
transmitter or the receiver side, respectively. Therefore, the overall
channel correlation matrix is R = R Tx
R Rx , where
indicates
the Kronecker product. We fix the trace of R , i.e., the SNR is fixed at
the receiver. In particular, the transmitter is equipped with a ULA of
dipoles with a =2 inter-element spacing. Such a setting is representative of the WLAN downlink transmission, where the fixed access
point has not severe size constraints. This configuration also assures
that the assumptions used to define the IEEE 802.11n channel models
are fulfilled [9]. The well-known Bessel-type correlation coefficient
ij (d) = J0 (2d=) is used to evaluate the correlation among the
three dipoles at the transmitter [2]. At the receiver side, our sectoral
array of Yagi-Uda elements is compared, in terms of channel capacity,
with an ideal receiver, whose correlation matrix is the identity matrix.

1 2
= R1Rx2H iidRTx

log2 det

+ N Tx H H y

(4)

where [1] denotes expectation with respect to different channel realizations H iid ; I is the 3 2 3 identity matrix, NTx = 3 is the number of
transmit antennas, and ( 1 )y denotes Hermitian transposition.
Furthermore, to evaluate the performance of the Yagi-Uda array
in other practical scenarios, we resorted to numerical simulations involving clustered, frequency selective MIMO channel models [9]. For
this class of channels we considered a truncated Laplacian PAS [14]

( )=

2

2
=1
1 )]
1[ (0
1[ (0 + 1 )]

p 

Qk

k

2 f

exp

0;k j

2 111

;k 0

;k

(5)

where Nc is the number of clusters to be considered for a given tap of

the channel impulse response, Qk is a normalization constant for the
k th cluster, 0;k is the angle of arrival (AoA) of the k th cluster, which is
centered on the [0;k 01k ; 0;k +1k ] interval with 21k being the
angular spread (AS), k is the standard deviation of the non-truncated
distribution relative to the k th cluster and, finally, 1[1] is the Heaviside
step function. Let L be the number of channel taps, then for each lth
tap, l = 0; 1; . . . ; L 0 1, we first compute the PAS in (5) and, similarly
to the flat Rayleigh fading case, by using (1) we obtain the resulting
correlation matrices. Therefore, as for (3), for each lth channel tap,
we find the corresponding channel matrix H l . The computation of the
capacity of multipath clustered MIMO channels requires the discrete
Fourier transform of the channel [15]

~ =

L01

0j 2l(k=N )

H le

Hk

l=0

= 0; 1; . . . ; N 1
0

(6)

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011

Fig. 7. Ergodic capacity over a 1000 channel realization as a function of SNR,

for a truncated Laplacian PAS in a clustered, frequency selective fading channel
model (model D: 18 taps3 clusters channel impulse response). A rotated version of the proposed array is also considered (60 degrees counterclockwise rotation, with respect to Fig. 3).

where the transform is computed over

godic capacity is obtained as

C=

N > L points. Hence, the er-

1 N01 log det I + H~ kH~ y

k
N k=0 2
NTx

:;

:; :; :

[5] C. Waldschmidt and W. Wiesbeck, Compact wide-band multimode

antennas for MIMO and diversity, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.
52, pp. 19631969, Aug. 2004.
[6] B. T. Quist and M. A. Jensen, Optimal antenna radiation characteristics for diversity and MIMO systems, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 57, pp. 34743481, Nov. 2009.
[7] A. C. K. Mak, C. R. Rowell, and R. D. Murch, Low cost reconfigurable
Landstorfer planar antenna array, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.
57, pp. 30513061, Oct. 2009.
[8] A. D. Capobianco, F. M. Pigozzo, S. Boscolo, M. Midrio, F. Sacchetto,
A. Assalini, L. Brunetta, N. Zambon, and S. Pupolin, A novel compact
MIMO array based on planar Yagi antennas for multipath fading channels, in Proc. Eur. Wireless Technology Conference (EuWIT 2010),
2010, pp. 9396.
[9] TGn Channel Models, IEEE 802.11-03/940r4, May 2004.
[10] C. Hermosilla, R. Feick, R. Valenzuela, and L. Ahumada, Improving
MIMO capacity with directive antennas for outdoor-indoor scenarios,
IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 8, pp. 21772181, May 2009.
[11] N. Kaneda, W. R. Deal, Y. Qian, R. Waterhouse, and T. Itoh, A broadband planar quasi-Yagi antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.
50, pp. 11581160, Aug. 2002.
[12] CST Microwave Studio 2009. Darmstadt, Germany.
[13] R. Vaughan and J. B. Andersen, Channels, Propagation and Antennas for Mobile Communications, ser. IEE Electromagnetic
Waves. London: IEE Press, 2003, vol. 50.
[14] L. Schumacher, K. I. Pedersen, and P. E. Mogensen, From antenna
spacings to theoretical capacitiesGuidelines for simulating MIMO
systems, in Proc. IEEE PIMRC, 2002, vol. 2, pp. 587592.
[15] H. Blcskei, D. Gesbert, and A. J. Paulraj, On the capacity of OFDMbased spatial multiplexing systems, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 50,
pp. 225234, Feb. 2002.

(7)

Figs. 6 and 7 show that the proposed array offers a theoretical achievable capacity that is remarkably close to the ideal (i.e., uncorrelated)
receiver case, both for a uniform PAS scenario and for a clustered
channel (model D in [9]), respectively. In the latter case, a 60 rotation of the proposed array is also considered, to verify the robustness
of the design. It is worth mentioning that the channel model D corresponds to a channel with a root-mean square time delay spread equal
to 50 ns, = 18 taps, 3 clusters with angle of arrival (AoA) 0;k 2
f158 9 320 2 276 2g[ ] and AS = 21 k 2 f27 7 31 4 37 4g[ ].

:;

3465

IV. CONCLUSION
In this communication it was shown that the use of short end-fire
antennas as sectoral radiators, in a planar compact MIMO array, results in almost orthogonal patterns. Specifically, we considered printed
Yagi-Uda antennas. The proposed design leads to a low signal correlation among the radiating elements. Therefore, channel capacity can be
maintained high even in such a small array (55 mm 2 48 mm). This can
be particularly attractive for very compact devices to be employed in
indoor applications. Numerical evaluation of the array performance in
typical 2D MIMO scenarios, by means of IEEE 802.11n channel models,
confirmed the validity of the considered approach. The reported design
principle can be extended to arrays having a large number of antennas.

REFERENCES
[1] D. M. Pozar, The active element pattern, IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 42, pp. 11761178, Aug. 1994.
[2] R. G. Vaughan and J. B. Andersen, Antenna diversity in mobile communications, IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 36, pp. 149172, Nov.
1987.
[3] S. H. Chae, S.-K. Oh, and S.-O. Park, Analysis of mutual coupling,
correlations, and TARC in WiBro MIMO array antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 122125, 2007.
[4] A. Forenza and R. W. Heath, Benefit of pattern diversity via twoelement array of circular patch antennas in indoor clustered MIMO
channels, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 54, pp. 943954, May 2006.

Axial Ratio Enhancement for Circularly-Polarized

Millimeter-Wave Phased-Arrays Using a Sequential
Rotation Technique
A. Bart Smolders and U. Johannsen
AbstractCircular polarization is indispensable for robust wireless communication between mobile devices that operate at mm-wave frequencies.
Additionally, phased-array solutions are required to cope with the associated
free space path loss. In view of the size constraints for antennas integrated
on (Bi)CMOS chips, an array of linearly polarized dipoles using a sequential
rotation scheme is an attractive approach to comply with all mentioned requirements. When steering such an array off broadside, however, the axial
ratio will severely degrade. It is the purpose of this communication to demonstrate how the axial ratio can be retained by compensating the amplitudes
and phases of the individual antenna elements. Measured results on a 6 GHz
test-bed show that the axial ratio with the proposed calibration scheme remains below 3 dB within the 3 dB beamwidth of the scanned beam. Results
from a 60 GHz test-bed confirm the effectiveness of the method.
Index TermsAntenna-on-chip, axial ratio, calibration, circular polarization, integrated antennas, mm-wave antennas, phased arrays, printed
dipoles.

I. INTRODUCTION
At millimeter-waves (mm-waves), the integration of the antenna into
low-cost silicon IC technologies with high transit frequencies fT becomes feasible [1], [2]. At these frequencies, the effective wavelength
for an antenna-on-chip (AoC) on silicon is close to or smaller than a
Manuscript received August 26, 2010; revised November 19, 2010; accepted
February 09, 2011. Date of publication July 12, 2011; date of current version
September 02, 2011.
The authors are with Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands (e-mail: a.b.smolders@tue.nl; u.johannsen@tue.nl).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2011.2161443

0018-926X/$26.00 2011 IEEE