Study of the mutual coupling, correlations and efficiency of two

PIFA antennas on a small ground plane

Zhinong Ying, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communication AB, 22188, Lund, Sweden
Dan Zhang Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, P.R.China

Introduction
In next generation mobile communications systems, there is a need for increasing capacity or reducing
interference level between channels in the mobile terminal. This might be achieved by introducing multiantenna function on the terminal. To study the performance of multi-channel antenna in mobile
environment, some of the parameters have been defined in the early academic journals [1] [2]. The mean
effective gain (MEG) is a statistical measure of antenna gain in mobile environment. In MEG
computation, the propagation model is defined to describe a specific mobile environment. The
correlation coefficient of the antennas is another important parameter to describe the correlation of the
antennas. Those parameters can be calculated from the 3-dimensional far field complex radiation patterns
of the antennas which can be got from a numerical method or an advanced measurement system.[6,71
Recently, some theoretical work has show that in some simply case of the environment, such as a
uniform random field case, the correlation coefficient can be calculated from the near field parameters
such S-parameters [3][4][5]. This is a very useful method for multi-channel antenna correlation
evaluation which can save a lot of time in the applications, mutual coupling loss is also important
parameter to measure the efficiency of multi-antenna system.

PIFA antenna is an important class of antenna, which is commonly used in the mobile terminals. In this
paper, we use the method of moment to study the mutual coupling, correlations, and antenna efficiency
of two PIFA antennas which are operating at W-LAN frequency. The antennas are placed on a small
ground plan 100*40mm with different locations and orientations. The simulation is compared with the
measured results. The results will be very useful guide line for this kind antenna system design for the

future.

Test parameters and cases

The mutual coupling between the antennas can be measured from S parameters: S2 1, which can
be simulated or tested relatively easily. Higher mutual coupling means lower antenna efficiency, the
radiation efficiency can be calculated. The correlation coefficient is usually calculated from the 3dimensional radiation patterns [6,7]. Recently, some theoretical work has show that in some simply case
of the environment, such as a uniform random field case, the correlation coefficient can be calculated
from the near field parameters such S-parameters [3][4][5]. When the propagation is assumed an
uniform random field, the correlation coefficient can be expressed as the near field S-parameters as:

IS;ISI +S*lS122
21
~~~1=12
2(I
S1S1 12+;12 22
(1- S 112 -S2 )(1-1S221 1S1212)

=
Pe n~

(I)

In this way, the correlation coefficient can be calculated or measured much quickly.
The test case in this study is defined as following, the ground plane size is 100*40mm, two PIFA
antennas are mounted orthogonally and parallel on the surface. One of the PIFA antennas (antenna 1) is
located at top of PCB, another antenna (antenna 2) is moved around on the PCB to test the S-parameters.
Then mutual coupling, correlations, bandwidth and radiation efficiency can be calculated.

0-7803-8883-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

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Case 1

Case I shows one PLFA antenna (antenna 1) is mounted horizontally at top of PCB, another (antenna2) is
mounted vertically above PCB. The antenna system is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. I Two PIFA antenna on the finite ground plane, it shows port I and port 2 locations.
The simulated S-parameters for a particular point in case I are shown in Fig.2 (a), which is compared
with the measured results in 16]. Very good agreement was found. The centre frequency is 2.45GHz,
both antenna are well matched, the mutual coupling at centre frequency is about -15dB. The correlation
coefficient is calculated according to equation (I) and shown in fig.2 (b), it shows the antennas have
very low correlations, the better matching, the lower correlation it has.

i.:___

,,~~~~~ ,-.,- .

. .~~.
.. X

Fig. 2. (a) Simulated SI 1,S21,S22 of the antenna system; (b) calculated correlation coefficiency.

Where is the best location for antenna 2? We moved the antenna 2 with 10mm steps both horizontally
and vertically. The S21 results and correlations at centre frequency are shown in Fig. 3 as a 3-D figure.
The results show that the left side edge has a minimum coupling, and right top and bottom have
relatively high coupling. The correlations are quite low since both antennas are well matched, it shows
the closer, the higher correlation the antenna gets.

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Fig. 3, the left shows the S21 parameter when antenna 2 at different positions, the right shows the
correlation when antenna 2 at different positions.

The bandwidth of antenna 2 depends on the position as well, the results are shown in Fig. 4. It shows the
bandwidth at both side edges is larger than in the centre of the ground plane. The left edge near bottom,
it has low mutual coupling, low correlation, and good bandwidth (about 7.5% bandwidth).

Case 2
We did the study of the case both two PlFA antennas are horizontal, feeding points are at same side, as
shown in Fig.5. In this case, the coupling is very high when the antenna is close to each other, the best
isolation is antenna 2 at near bottom around -IOdB.

0-4

S~~~~~~~~~~~-414..-------

-12

-12.-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1

Fig. 5 case 2 shows both two PIFA antennas are horizontal, the right figure shows the S21 results when
antenna 2 in different positions.

307

Fig.6 shows the calculated correlations of case 2. In this case, the correlation reduces dramatically, it
was found the antenna bandwidth in case 2 are much small, around 3%.

-30,

-70
10
00

More antenna orientations and positions are studied, the results can be found in the [8].

Conclusions
The mutual coupling, correlation co efficiency, bandwidth and radiation efficiency are studied for a two
PIFA antenna system on a small ground plane. The results show, the mutual coupling in multi antenna
system can result in the low antenna efficiency, higher correlations. Some positions which have less
coupling (more than 15dB isolation), low correlation and good bandwidth are found. The correlations
are depending on S 1, S21 and S22, from equation (1), we found, the better matched the antenna gets,
the low correlation it has.

References

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Veh. Technol., 1987, 36, pp.146-172.
[2] Taga, T., "Analysis for mean effective gain of mobile antennas in land mobile radio environment",
EEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., 1990, voI39, pp. 117-131.
[31 Blanch S., Romeu J. and Corbella I., "Exact representation of antenna system diversity performance
from input parameter description", IEE Electronics Letters, vol.39, pp.705-707, May, 2003.
[4] Salonen I. and Vainikainen, "Estimation of signal correlation in antenna arrays", Proc. JINA 2002,
Nice France.
[5] Derneryd A. and Kristensson G., "Antennas signal correlation and its relation to the impedance
matrix", Electronics letters, 2004, vol.40, No.7, pp.401-402.
[61 Plicanic V. "Antenna diversity study and evaluation", Master Thesis, LTH, 2004.May.
[71 Ying Z., et. al., "Characterization of multi-channel antenna performance for mobile terminal by
using near field and far field parameters", COST 273, TD(04)095, 2004.
[81 Zhang D., "Study of two PlFA antennas over a small ground plane", BS thesis, Zhejiang University,
2004, June.

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