2224 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO.
4, APRIL 2019
A Simple Decoupling Method for 5G
Millimeter-Wave MIMO Dielectric
Resonator Antennas
Yong Mei Pan , Senior Member, IEEE, Xin Qin, Yu Xiang Sun ,
and Shao Yong Zheng , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— A simple decoupling method of using metallic vias to
improve the isolation of millimeter-wave multiple-input-multiple-
output (MIMO) dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) elements is
investigated. The vias are vertically added to the DRA elements,
at appropriate positions. By means of the interaction with the
electromagnetic fields, the vias can potentially affect the filed
distributions and further reduce the coupled fields effectively.
The isolation between the MIMO DRA elements can, therefore,
be enhanced substantially. As the vias are placed inside the
DRA elements, no extra footprint is needed, making the entire
antenna system very simple and compact. Two typical examples,
including an H-plane and an E-plane, coupled 1 × 2 MIMO
DRA arrays, have been designed, fabricated, and measured to
demonstrate the feasibility and universality of this method. The
results show that by using the vias appropriately, the isolation of
the H-plane coupled MIMO DRA array can be enhanced from
∼15.2 to 34.2 dB, while that of the E-plane array can be improved
from ∼13.1 to 43 dB at 26 GHz.
Index Terms— Decoupling, dielectric resonator antenna (DRA),
millimeter-wave (mm-wave) antenna, multiple-input-multiple-
output (MIMO) antenna.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A T PRESENT, the mobile internet, unmanned vehicle,
Internet of Things, and virtual reality are advancing
at unprecedented rates, which involve massive information
exchange and demand for extremely high data rate and
large capacity. Consequently, the millimeter-wave (mm-wave)
spectrum becomes a potential choice for the upcoming
fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication systems [1]–[3].
In China, the bands of 24.75–27.5 GHz and 37–42.5 GHz have
been identified as interesting bands for future 5G communica-
tion. However, the propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves
Manuscript received June 20, 2018; revised November 28, 2018; accepted
December 12, 2018. Date of publication January 8, 2019; date of current
version April 5, 2019. This work was supported in part by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61871187 and in part by the
Guangdong Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholars under
Grant 2016A030306007. (Corresponding author: Yong Mei Pan.)
Y. M. Pan and X. Qin are with the School of Electronic and Information
Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641,
China (e-mail: eeympan@scut.edu.cn).
Y. X. Sun is with the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, City
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and also with the Department of
Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
S. Y. Zheng is with the Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2019.2891456
0018-926X © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
suffers high pass loss and attenuation in mm-wave band, which
decreases the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio consider-
ably. To mitigate the problem, the mm-wave multiple-input-
multiple-output (MIMO) technology is expected to be used
in 5G systems [2], [3]. Accordingly, how to integrate multiple
antennas within constrained space becomes a crucial issue.
When two or multiple antennas are placed closely, the sys-
tem performance will be degraded undesirably owing to the
poor isolation [4]. Therefore, in the past decade, extensive
research efforts have been directed toward the reduction of
mutual coupling between antenna elements. In general, decou-
pling strategies can be classified into two categories. The first
approach is to directly reduce the current or field between
antenna elements. This is usually implemented by using
metamaterials [5], [6], electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) struc-
tures [7]–[9], or defected ground planes [10], [11]. The second
approach relies on introducing an extra coupling path by using
parasitic scatters [12], distributed [13], or lumped [14], [15]
decoupling networks, as well as neutralization lines [16], [17],
to counteract the original coupling. Up until now, most
reported decoupling structures were placed between or ver-
tically above the antenna elements, which would inevitably
occupy extra space and increase the system complexity.
Therefore, although the decoupling methods mentioned above
are effective at microwave frequencies, directly scaling these
circuits up to mm-wave band is not a good way or even
impractical due to the difficulties in machining the small and
complicated decoupling structures [5]–[9]. Also, the high loss
of decoupling elements is another problem. Therefore, it is of
great significance to investigate simple decoupling structures
with low loss for mm-wave antennas.
Dielectric resonator (DR) antenna (DRA) has advantages of
small size, wide bandwidth, and ease of excitation [18]. More-
over, the DRA is purely made of dielectric, and therefore, its
loss can be made very small even at mm-wave frequency. All
these features make the DRA an excellent antenna candidate
for mm-wave systems [19]. Recently, there are a few studies
concerning the reduction of mutual coupling between DRA
elements in mm-wave MIMO system [20]–[23]. The classi-
cal metasurface shield [20], metamaterial polarization-rotator
wall [21], frequency selective surface (FSS) wall [22], and
EBG structure [23] were adopted. Although acceptable decou-
pling effects have been achieved, the periodic decoupling
structures were rather complex and they suffered from bulky
PAN et al.: SIMPLE DECOUPLING METHOD FOR 5G mm-WAVE MIMO DRAs
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed via-loaded H-plane decoupled
MIMO DRA. (a) Top view. (b) Side view.
size, limited bandwidth, as well as considerable loss. In this
paper, simple metallic vias are used to improve the isolation
of mm-wave MIMO DRA elements for the first time. It has
been found that by placing the vias vertically inside the
DRA elements at appropriate positions, the mutual coupling
can be substantially reduced, without increasing either the
footprint or height of the antenna. At the same time, the decou-
pling vias affect slightly the field distributions of the excited
antenna, and therefore, the radiation patterns are not deformed
and kept almost the same as the single DRA. In addition,
since the DR is still the main radiator and the additional
vias do not resonate in the operating band, the loss caused
by the vias is desirably negligible. For demonstration, this
decoupling method is used in both the E-plane and H-plane
coupled 1 × 2 MIMO antennas. It has been shown that the
proposed decoupling vias can effectively decrease the E-plane
and H-plane coupling by 19.8 and 22.7 dB within the operating
band.
The organization of this paper is as follows. A study of the
H-plane coupled MIMO DRA array is given in Section II. The
E-plane decoupling is demonstrated in Section III. A compre-
hensive comparison and a discussion are given in Section IV.
Finally, the conclusion is drawn in Section V.
II. H-P LANE C OUPLED M IMO A NTENNA
As the field distributions of antenna vary with its polar-
ization, the mutual coupling between antenna elements and,
hence, the decoupling schemes should be quite different
accordingly. Two typical arrangements, i.e., placing two DRAs
side by side in the H-plane and the E-plane will be discussed in
this paper. In this section, the H-plane coupled MIMO antenna
is investigated first.
A. Antenna Configuration
Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the H-plane decoupled
MIMO antenna. Two identical rectangular DRA elements are
2225
Fig. 2. Configurations of MIMO antennas. a = 4.5 mm, b = 4.5 mm, d =
1.27 mm, εr = 10.2, s = 5.77 mm, e = 1.27 mm, d0 = 0.5 mm, tx =
1.4 mm, t y = 0.45 mm, gl = 21.77 mm, gw = 11 mm, h = 0.254 mm, and
wm = 0.74 mm. (a) Reference Antenna HRI : H-plane coupled MIMO antenna
without via, lm = 0.7 mm, ws = 0.1 mm, and ls = 2.28 mm. (b) Proposed
Antenna HP : H-plane decoupled MIMO antenna with via, lm = 1.5 mm,
ws = 0.2 mm, and ls = 2.2 mm.
placed side by side along the x-axis, and the center-to-center
spacing is given by s. The rectangular DRAs have the same
dimensions, with length a, widthb, height d, and relative
permittivity εr . Each DRA is fed at the center by an x-directed
microstrip-coupled slot that is fabricated on a substrate with a
thickness of h = 0.254 mm and a permittivity of εr1 = 2.2.
The rectangular slots with length ls and width ws are etched
on the top layer of the substrate, whereas two 50  microstrip
lines are parallel printed on the other side of the substrate to
feed the slots. By using this feeding scheme, the fundamental
TE111(x) mode of DRA will be excited. To reduce the H-plane
(xz plane) coupling between the two neighboring DRAs, two
vias with the same diameter d0 are inserted into each DRA
to act as the decoupling structure. It will be shown in the
following section that the metallic vias can effectively suppress
the coupled fields, and thus achieve good isolation without
affecting the radiation performance of the antenna.
B. Antenna Mechanism
The influences of the metallic vias are investigated through
a comparison between two sets of 1 × 2 MIMO DRAs with
and without vias, as shown in Fig. 2. The MIMO DRA
without vias (denoted as reference Antenna HRI ) operating
in the TE111(x) mode is initially designed at 26 GHz, which
is a potential band of the 5G system in China. For a fair
comparison, the same dimensions are used for all the DRA
elements and the center-to-center spacing of each MIMO
antenna also remains the same. The detailed dimensions of
the MIMO antennas are listed in the caption of Fig. 2.
Fig. 3 shows the simulated S-parameters. It can be seen
that Antenna HRI resonates at 26 GHz as expected, and the
−10 dB impedance bandwidth is 7.3%, ranging from 25.1 to
27.0 GHz. The bandwidth is relatively narrow for a DRA
with εr = 10.2, but this is reasonable as the antenna has
a low profile of 1.27 mm (the DRA will be fabricated by
a Rogers 6010 substrate and the height of DRA has to be
fixed at 1.27 mm) and low profile tends to give a narrower
bandwidth. Owing to the EM fields coupling, the two DRA
elements exhibit low isolation, with transmission coefficient
|S21 | given by about −15 dB within the impedance passband.
When simply inserting two vias in each DRA, as shown in
Fig. 2(b), the mutual coupling is decreased significantly to
2226 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019

Fig. 3. Simulated S-parameters of the reference Antenna HRI , the proposed

Antenna HP , as well as the single DRA.

lower than −40 dB which is very impressive. However, due to

the loading effect of the metallic vias, the resonance frequency
shifts slightly to 26.8 GHz and the impedance matching gets
poorer (the results are not shown in Fig. 3 for clarity). This
small deviation can be compensated by adjusting the feeding
slot (ws = 0.2 mm and ls = 2.2 mm) and microstrip stub
(lm = 1.5 mm). As indicated by the red lines, good impedance
matching and enhanced isolation are simultaneously obtained
at 26 GHz in the proposed Antenna HP . For comparison, the
reflection coefficient of the single rectangular DRA element is
also shown in Fig. 3. It can be clearly seen that the decoupling
is achieved without sacrificing the impedance bandwidth.
To analyze the decoupling mechanism, the simulated E-field
distributions inside the DRAs, as well as the current distribu-
tions on the microstrip feed-lines and the metallic vias of the
two antennas, are compared in Fig. 4. The small circles in
the DRA represent the vias. In the simulation, it is assumed
that DRA-1 is excited while DRA-2 is terminated by a 50 
load. With reference to Fig. 4(a), the TE111(x) mode is excited
in DRA-1 of Antenna HRI . Owing to the mutual coupling, Fig. 4. Simulated E-field distributions inside the DRAs as well as the current
current of considerable intensity is induced on the microstrip distributions on the microstrip feedlines and the metallic vias of (a) reference
Antenna HRI without via and (b) proposed Antenna HP with via.
feedline-2, which excites the y-directed electric field inside
DRA-2 accordingly, leading to a poor isolation of ∼15 dB.
When two metallic vias are symmetrically introduced into
each DRA of the proposed Antenna HP , it is clear to see
in Fig. 4(b) that a very small amount of field can be coupled
into DRA-2. The isolation, therefore, can be enhanced sub-
stantially. This is because the current is now mainly coupled
to the metallic vias instead of microstrip feedline-2. Conse-
quently, the y-polarized field cannot be excited effectively in
DRA-2, exhibiting rather weak field intensity. In fact, it is
common knowledge that conductive metal bodies (vias here)
can perturb, constrain, or counteract EM waves [24], [25].
Thus, they can potentially affect the filed distributions and,
hence, reduce the mutual coupling between antenna elements. Fig. 5. Simulated 2-D radiation patterns of the H-plane coupled MIMO
The radiation patterns and antenna gains have also been antennas with (proposed Antenna HP ) and without (reference Antenna HRI )
metallic vias, as well as the single DRA at 26 GHz. (a) xz plane. (b) yz plane.
examined. Fig. 5 shows the simulated radiation patterns of
the single DRA and the MIMO antennas that before and after single DRA element, the radiation pattern especially the xz
decoupling, i.e., the reference Antenna HRI and the proposed plane copolarized pattern of Antenna HRI is changed owing to
Antenna HP . It can be clearly seen that compared with the the mutual interaction. After decoupling, the radiation pattern
PAN et al.: SIMPLE DECOUPLING METHOD FOR 5G mm-WAVE MIMO DRAs
Fig. 6. Simulated boresight gains of the reference Antenna HRI , the proposed
Antenna HP , as well as the single DRA.
Fig. 7. Simulated E-field distributions inside the DRAs of (a) Antenna HRII ,
in which the via position is changed and (b) Antenna HRIII , in which the via
number is changed.
is improved and looks very similar to that of the single
DRA. The cross-polarized field in the yz plane is found
to increase with the introduction of metallic vias, but very
slightly, and a low cross-polarization level of about −30 dB
can be maintained in the boresight direction. The simulated
boresight gains of the three antennas are shown in Fig. 6. It can
be seen that the proposed MIMO antenna has a gain of 6.4 dBi,
which is comparable to the single DRA. However, the gain of
Antenna HRI is about 1.6 dB lower. This is reasonable because
considerable power is coupled to DRA-2 due to the poor
isolation, and moreover, the radiation pattern of Antenna HRI
is deformed, as shown in Fig. 5, with its maximum radiation
deviating from the boresight direction.
The positions and the number of metallic vias are changed
to further characterize the decoupling method, and the corre-
sponding field distributions are shown in Fig. 7. Again, for a
fair comparison, the same dimensions are used for each DRA
element, and the resonant frequencies of all MIMO antennas
are adjusted to 26 GHz by tuning the dimensions of slots and
2227
Fig. 8. Simulated S-parameters of reference Antenna HRI and the proposed
Antenna HP . The edge-to-edge spacing is reduced to 0.5 mm.
microstrip stubs. It can be seen in Fig. 7(a) that the positions
of vias affect the field distributions significantly, as expected.
When the vias in DRA-1 are moved from the right side to
the left side, the intensity of electric field becomes weak on
the left half of DRA-1 due to the perturbation effect of the
metallic vias, but it remains quite strong on the right half.
Consequently, a moderate amount of EM fields can be coupled
into DRA-2, as shown in Fig. 7(a). The isolation, therefore,
can only be increased slightly by ∼6 dB. Next, the number
of metallic vias is changed. As shown in Fig. 7(b), four vias,
instead of two, are added into each DRA but their positions are
kept similar to those of the proposed Antenna HP . In this case,
the substantial decoupling effect of ∼18 dB can be obtained,
as expected. However, compared with the proposed antenna,
there is no improvement. The results indicate that increasing
the number of vias could not further enhance the isolation.
The effects of the diameter and the height of the vias have
also been studied. They are found rather mild, and the results
are, therefore, not shown for brevity.
For a MIMO antenna, the coupling level is very sensitive to
the spacing between the antenna elements. To further prove the
feasibility and effectiveness of the decoupling method, an even
smaller edge-to-edge spacing e = 0.5 mm (0.04λ at 26 GHz) is
used in the H-plane MIMO DRAs. As the change of spacing
also has an effect on the reflection coefficient, the parame-
ters have been reoptimized for good impedance matching.
Fig. 8 shows the simulated S-parameters of this specific case
and also the counterpart without vias for comparison. It can be
observed that although the DRA elements are pretty close to
each other, a mutual coupling reduction of ∼26 dB is achieved
over the operating band, and a high isolation of over 32 dB
can still be obtained with the aid of the decoupling vias.
As a summary, Table I lists the via number, bandwidth,
gain, and isolation level of all the above-mentioned H-plane
coupled MIMO antennas.
C. Experimental Verification
For validation, the proposed via-loaded H-plane decoupled
MIMO antenna was fabricated and tested. Two photographs
showing the top view and bottom view of the prototype are
2228 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019

TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF THE R EFERENCE AND THE P ROPOSED
H-P LANE C OUPLED MIMO A NTENNAS

Fig. 10. Simulated and measured S-parameters of the H-plane decoupled

prototype.

Fig. 9. Prototype of the proposed via-loaded H-plane decoupled MIMO

antenna. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view.

provided in Fig. 9. In the prototype, the DRAs were processed

from a Rogers 6010 substrate while the feeding circuits were
printed on a PCB of Rogers 5880. The DRAs were then
affixed on the substrate via a very thin layer of instant glue.
Two End-Launch-Connectors of 1492-02A-5 purchased from
Southwest Microwave, Inc., were used to feed the microstrip
lines. All the dimensions of the prototype are the same as
in Fig. 2, except that a larger ground plane with length gl =
21.77 mm and width gw = 64 mm is used in the prototype
to ease the installment of mm-wave connectors as well as to
reduce their interference effect on the antenna performance.
It is worth mentioning that the enlargement of the ground
plane would slightly change the coupling level between the
two DRA elements, but still, a high isolation of over 30 dB
can be obtained by means of the proposed decoupling method.
Moreover, the improvement effects of the metallic vias on the Fig. 11. Simulated and measured normalized 2-D patterns of the H-plane
radiation patterns and antenna gains are retained. In this paper, decoupled prototype at 26 GHz. (a) Port 1. (b) Port 2.
the S-parameters were measured using a Keysight N5247A
PNA-X Network Analyzer, whereas the antenna gains and
radiation patterns were tested using a compact range antenna (24.9–27.0 GHz), respectively. Within the operating band, both
measurement System. More specifically, in the measurement of the measured and simulated isolations are over 30 dB.
of S-parameters, the two ports of the antenna were, respec- In particular, the measured isolation is about 34.2 dB at the
tively, connected to the two ports of the network analyzer. center frequency 26 GHz, and it even increases to 40 dB
However, the conventional single-port approach was used to at the lower frequencies near 25 GHz. Fig. 11 shows the
measure the radiation patterns and antenna gains. That is, normalized 2-D radiation patterns in the xz and yz planes.
when measuring port 1, only port 1 is excited while port 2 Due to the system factor and the influence of the oversized
is terminated with a matched load, and vice versa. mm-wave connectors, small ripples appear in the measured
The simulated and measured S-parameters of the prototype patterns. However, the agreement with the simulated results is
are shown in Fig. 10, exhibiting acceptable agreement. With still reasonably good. Broadside radiation patterns are obtained
reference to Fig. 10, the measured and simulated −10 dB as expected, and the E-plane (yz plane) and H-plane (xz plane)
impedance bandwidths are 7.3% (25.2–27.1 GHz) and 8% beamwidths are about 142° and 70°, respectively. The broad
PAN et al.: SIMPLE DECOUPLING METHOD FOR 5G mm-WAVE MIMO DRAs 2229

Fig. 12. Simulated and measured boresight gains of the H-plane decoupled
prototype.

Fig. 13. Configuration of the proposed via-loaded E-plane decoupled MIMO

beamwidth obtained in the E-plane is mainly caused by the antenna. (a) Top view. (b) Side view.
enlarged ground plane. Also, due to the enlarged ground plane,
the simulated cross-polarized field in the 45° direction of yz
plane is increased to about −13 dB, but in the boresight
direction, it is still as low as −35.9 dB. The measured
cross-polarized field is lower than −20 dB.
Fig. 12 presents the measured and simulated boresight
gains, which show a similar trend as a function of frequency,
except that a gain jitter of about 0.6 dB is observed in
the measured result. The jitter is also mainly caused by the
Fig. 14. Configurations of the MIMO antennas. (a) Reference Antenna
mm-wave measurement system and the oversized connectors. ERI : E-plane coupled MIMO antenna without via. (b) Proposed Antenna EP :
Over the operating band, the simulated gain varies between E-plane decoupled MIMO antenna with via, a = 4.92 mm, b = 4.92 mm,
3.7 and 4.7 dBi, the measured gain of port 1 varies between d = 1.27 mm, εr = 10.2, s = 5.77 mm, e = 0.85 mm, d0 = 0.7 mm, tx =
1.36 mm, t y = 1.26 mm, gl = 17.77 mm, gw = 16 mm, h = 0.254 mm,
3.4 and 4.7 dBi, while that of port 2 varies between 3.6 and wm = 0.74 mm, lm = 0.5 mm,ws = 0.36 mm, and ls = 2.1 mm.
4.7 dBi. Compared to the typical value of ∼6 dBi, the gain is
relatively lower for a DRA. This is mainly because the E-plane
pattern of the DRA has been broadened by the enlarged ground
plane, as shown in Fig. 11. Referring to Fig. 6, a higher gain
of 6.4 dBi can be obtained when using a smaller ground plane.

III. E-P LANE C OUPLED M IMO A NTENNA

The E-plane coupled MIMO DRA is studied in this section.

A. Antenna Configuration
Fig. 13 shows the configuration of the proposed via-loaded
E-plane decoupled MIMO antenna. Again, two identical rec-
tangular DRAs are placed along the x-axis, separated by
a distance s. Different from the above-mentioned case, the
coupling slots are now assigned with the y-axis, and the 50  Fig. 15. Simulated S-parameters of the reference Antenna ERI , the proposed
microstrip lines are curved into L-shape to feed the slots. Antenna EP , as well as the single DRA.
Therefore, the TE111(y) mode is excited and the xz plane
becomes the E-plane. To reduce the E-plane coupling between
any decoupling structure and the proposed Antenna EP which
the two neighboring DRAs, four vias that are symmetrical
has extra metallic vias, as shown in Fig. 14. Both sets of
about both the x- and y-axes are inserted into each DRA
MIMO antennas are operating in the TE111(y) mode and are
element.
designed at 26 GHz. Fig. 15 shows the simulated S-parameters
of the two MIMO antennas. It can be seen that Antenna
B. Antenna Mechanism ERI has a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 7.3% and an
A comparison is also conducted between a reference isolation of about 13 dB, similar to the above-mentioned
antenna (Antenna ERI ) which is the dual-coupled DRA without H-plane coupled antenna. When adding the metallic vias,
2230
Fig. 16. Simulated E-field distributions inside the DRAs of (a) reference Antenna ERI without via, (b) proposed Antenna EP with 4 vias, and (c) reference
Antenna ERII with 2 vias.
Fig. 17. Simulated 2-D radiation patterns of the E-plane coupled MIMO
antennas with (proposed Antenna EP ) and without (reference Antenna ERI )
metallic vias, as well as the single DRA at 26 GHz. (a) xz plane. (b) yz plane.
the impedance bandwidth slightly increases to 9.2%, ranging
from 24.8 to 27.2 GHz. Simultaneously, the mutual coupling
decreases greatly to less than −30 dB. The effectiveness of
the decoupling vias is thus validated again.
The field distributions of the MIMO antennas with and
without metallic vias are investigated and shown in Fig. 16.
It can be seen in Fig. 16(a) that when there is no decoupling
structure, a large amount of fields can be coupled from
DRA-1 to DRA-2, and considerable x-polarized field can
be observed in DRA-2, indicating that the isolation is poor.
When adding decoupling vias in the two DRAs, it can be
observed in Fig. 16(b) that the fields within DRA-1 remain
almost unchanged, but the fields coupled to DRA-2 become
rather weak. The field and current concentrate around the
vias, while the current on the microstrip feedline-2 is very
weak. As a result, the isolation is improved significantly,
as demonstrated in Fig. 15. The two-vias scheme used in
the above-mentioned H-plane case has also been investigated.
As shown in Fig. 16(c), when only two vias are used, the fields
on the left half of DRA-2 are similar to that of the proposed
antenna, but the fields on the right half are now mainly along
the x-direction. Consequently, the isolation of Antenna ERII
can only be enhanced limitedly by about 8 dB, not as well as
the proposed scheme.
Fig. 17 plots the simulated radiation patterns of the sin-
gle DRA, the reference Antenna ERI , and the proposed
Antenna EP . Again, it can be clearly seen that the xz plane
pattern of Antenna ERI is seriously deformed by the coupling
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
Fig. 18. Simulated boresight gains of the reference Antenna ERI , the pro-
posed Antenna EP , as well as the single DRA.
from the neighboring DRA, while the metallic vias of the
proposed antenna are very helpful in remaining the radiation
performance. Moreover, owing to the metallic vias, the cross-
polarized field is desirably suppressed by about 10 dB over the
entire yz plane. Fig. 18 shows the simulated boresight gains
of the three antennas. As we can see, in comparison with
the single DRA and Antenna ERI , the gain of the proposed
antenna is more stable in the corresponding impedance band.
Meanwhile, the gain of the proposed antenna is the highest
at most of the frequency points, which is to be expected
owing to its lowest mutual coupling. The average gain within
passband is about 7.1 dBi. It is notable that the gain reduction
of Antenna ERI is not as obvious as that of Antenna HRI
shown in Fig. 6. This is due to the fact that although the
radiation pattern of Antenna ERI is also seriously deformed
by the mutual coupling, its maximum radiation is retained
in the boresight direction, and moreover, the beamwidth is
considerably decreased, as shown in Fig. 17. Consequently,
the boresight gain is only slightly reduced.
Also, the effect of the edge-to-edge spacing is investigated.
Fig. 19 shows the simulated S-parameters of the proposed
E-plane MIMO DRA whose edge-to-edge spacing is only
0.08 mm (0.007λ at 26 GHz). In this case, the two antenna ele-
ments are almost touching. Surprisingly, the proposed decou-
pling scheme is still found to be effective and can realize high
isolation. Compared with the DRA without decoupling vias,
a ∼23 dB (average) mutual-coupling reduction is obtained
over the band.
PAN et al.: SIMPLE DECOUPLING METHOD FOR 5G mm-WAVE MIMO DRAs 2231

Fig. 19. Simulated S-parameters of the reference Antenna ERI and the
proposed Antenna EP . The edge-to-edge spacing is reduced to 0.08 mm.

Fig. 21. Simulated and measured S-parameters of the E-plane decoupled

TABLE II prototype.
C OMPARISON OF THE R EFERENCE AND THE P ROPOSED
E-P LANE C OUPLED MIMO A NTENNAS

more than 30 dB over the band ranging from 25.4 to 27 GHz.

Due to the experiment and machining errors, the frequency of
the min |S21 | shifts slightly from 25.7 to 26.2 GHz, and the
maximum isolation is as high as ∼50 dB. Fig. 22 shows the
normalized simulated and measured 2-D patterns at 26 GHz.
The mm-wave connectors have also caused slight jitter in
the measured radiation patterns and certain rise in the cross-
polarization level in the E-plane. However, the difference
between the measurement and simulation is within accept-
able range. Similar broadside patterns with the single DRA
are obtained, and the cross-polarization ratio in the boresight
direction is lower than −25 dB. The simulated and measured
boresight gains of both ports are shown in Fig. 23. Very close
results are observed in the operating band. The simulated gain
varies between 6.2 and 6.7 dBi, the measured gain of port 1
varies between 6 and 6.6 dBi, and that of port 2 varies between
5.8 and 6.6 dBi, all of which are quite stable.

Fig. 20. Prototype of the proposed via-loaded E-plane decoupled MIMO IV. C OMPARISON AND D ISCUSSION
antenna. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view.
The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of the proposed
MIMO antennas has been calculated by:
The antenna performance of all the above-mentioned  − → −
→  2
 
E-plane coupled MIMO antennas is summarized in Table II  4π E 1 (θ, φ) · E 2 (θ, φ) d
ρe =   2  − 2 . (1)
for reference. −→  → 
4π  E 1 (θ, φ)  d 4π  E 2 (θ, φ)  d
C. Experimental Verification It is found that the ECC values of both the proposed via-loaded
A prototype of the proposed via-loaded E-plane decoupled MIMO antennas HP and EP are below 0.002 over the fre-
MIMO antenna was also fabricated and measured to verify the quency band of interest, which are much lower than that of
effectiveness of the decoupling method, as shown in Fig. 20. the reference antennas without metallic vias. Hence, a good
Similar to the H-plane prototype presented in Section II, spatial multiplexing performance can be expected by using the
the ground plane has been enlarged to 31.77 × 39 mm2 for decoupling method.
installing the End-Launch-Connectors and reducing the impact A comprehensive comparison between the proposed
of the connectors. Fig. 21 shows the simulated and measured via-loaded decoupled MIMO DRAs and the previously
S-parameters of the prototype. It can be seen that the measured reported designs is summarized in Table III. As shown
reflection coefficients of both ports are better than −10 dB in Table III, the decoupling effects of all the previous ele-
within the band of 25–27 GHz. The measured isolation is ments including the metasurface shield [20], metamaterial
2232
C OMPARISON OF THE P ROPOSED V IA -L OADED D ECOUPLED MIMO A NTENNA AND P REVIOUSLY R EPORTED D ESIGNS
Fig. 22. Simulated and measured normalized 2-D patterns of the E-plane
decoupled prototype at 26 GHz. (a) Port 1. (b) Port 2.
polarization-rotator wall [21], FSS wall [22], and EBG struc-
ture [23] are almost comparable. However, obviously, the pro-
posed metallic vias have the strongest decoupling ability and
the lowest design complexity. More importantly, the decou-
pling vias do not need extra space to accommodate, which
is very desirable for an mm-wave antenna system. In addi-
tion, compared with the work presented in [20] and [22],
whose radiation patterns are tilted almost 30° after decoupling,
the radiation patterns in this paper are not deformed and kept
almost the same as that of the single DRA.
Here, it is worth mentioning that although the vias had
been used to reduce mutual coupling in the patch anten-
nas [26], [27], the decoupling mechanism is totally different
from the present work. In [26], an array of metallic vias were
loaded between the patch and the ground plane to suppress
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
TABLE III
Fig. 23. Simulated and measured boresight gains of the E-plane decoupled
prototype.
the near-field and far-field coupling, which is the dominant
coupling between antennas printed on the thin substrate. The
decoupling is due to the fact that the capacitive substrate
polarization currents, i.e., the physical source of the coupling
among array elements, can be canceled out by the inductive
currents on the vias. As a result, in a narrow frequency band,
the effective permittivity of the patch cavity becomes close
to that of vacuum, and the lateral radiation at the horizon is
decreased significantly, diminishing the near-field and far-field
coupling. However, it has been shown that this technique
only works well for the E-plane coupled antennas with a
center-to-center spacing of over one wavelength. When the
spacing is as small as or less than half wavelength, the E-plane
coupling in the via-loaded patch antenna is even contrarily
higher than that in the traditional antenna without vias. For the
H-plane coupling, only less than 5 dB isolation enhancement
can be obtained. In [27], four rows of vias were inserted into
the patch to perturb the effective permittivity of the filling
material and further to eliminate the excitation of the dominant
TM0 surface wave, which is the main factor of the coupling
between antennas printed on the thicker substrate. Again,
this decoupling method is only workable for the E-plane
coupling with s > λ0 and has no effect on the H-plane
coupling, since the surface wave is not excited in the H-plane.
In addition, it is notable that in both of the MIMO patch
antennas [26], [27], the required number of metallic vias
PAN et al.: SIMPLE DECOUPLING METHOD FOR 5G mm-WAVE MIMO DRAs
is large. Specifically, 12 vias were used in [26], while 44 vias
were used in [27]. The introduction of vias decreases the
resonance frequency of the patch antennas and thus increasing
the antenna size significantly. Differently, as discussed earlier,
the decoupling in the proposed via-loaded DRA is realized
by the perturbation or constraint of the EM fields. Only
4 even 2 vias are needed in each antenna, and the vias
have a very slight effect on the resonance frequency and
radiation performance of the original DRA. Furthermore, this
decoupling vias work well for the elements that are very
closely placed in both the E-plane and the H-plane.
V. C ONCLUSION
Metallic vias have been used to enhance the isolation of
mm-wave MIMO DRA arrays. It has been shown that by
appropriately placing the vias vertically inside the DRA,
the metallic vias can perturb and constrain the EM fields, affect
and control the coupled fields, and thus decrease the mutual
coupling between the DRA elements effectively. Two cases,
an H-plane and an E-plane coupled 1 × 2 MIMO DRA arrays,
were studied. It has been shown that the proposed decou-
pling vias can decrease the E-plane and H-plane coupling
by 19.8 and 22.7 dB, respectively, within the operating band,
leading to a high isolation level of over 30 dB. Simultaneously,
the antenna gains have been improved considerably, without
deforming the radiation patterns.
The proposed decoupled MIMO DRA arrays have sim-
ple structure, compact size, and high isolation level. It is
believed that they would be a potential choice for mm-wave
5G applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the reviewers and the
Associate Editor for their valuable comments.
R EFERENCES
[1] W. Lin, R. W. Ziolkowski, and T. C. Baum, “28 GHz compact omnidirec-
tional circularly polarized antenna for device-to-device communications
in the future 5G systems,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 65,
no. 12, pp. 6904–6914, Dec. 2017.
[2] W. Hong, “Solving the 5G mobile antenna puzzle: Assessing future
directions for the 5G mobile antenna paradigm shift,” IEEE Microw.
Mag., vol. 18, no. 7, pp. 86–102, Nov./Dec. 2017.
[3] W. Hong et al., “Multibeam antenna technologies for 5G wireless
communications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 12,
pp. 6231–6249, Dec. 2017.
[4] M. S. Sharawi, M. U. Khan, A. B. Numan, and D. N. Aloi, “A CSRR
loaded MIMO antenna system for ISM band operation,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 61, no. 8, pp. 4265–4274, Aug. 2013.
[5] Z. Qamar, U. Naeem, S. A. Khan, M. Chongcheawchamnan,
and M. F. Shafique, “Mutual coupling reduction for high-
performance densely packed patch antenna arrays on finite substrate,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 5, pp. 1653–1660,
May 2016.
[6] X. M. Yang, X. G. Liu, X. Y. Zhou, and T. J. Cui, “Reduction of mutual
coupling between closely packed patch antennas using waveguided
metamaterials,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 11,
pp. 389–391, 2012.
[7] X. Yang, Y. Liu, Y.-X. Xu, and S.-X. Gong, “Isolation enhancement
in patch antenna array with fractal UC-EBG structure and cross slot,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 2175–2178, 2017.
2233
[8] G. Expósito-Domínguez, J.-M. Fernández-Gonzalez, P. Padilla, and
M. Sierra-Castañer, “Mutual coupling reduction using EBG in steer-
ing antennas,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 11,
pp. 1265–1268, 2012.
[9] H. S. Farahani, M. Veysi, M. Kamyab, and A. Tadjalli, “Mutual
coupling reduction in patch antenna arrays using a UC-EBG super-
strate,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 9, pp. 57–59,
2010.
[10] J. Ouyang, F. Yang, and Z. M. Wang, “Reducing mutual coupling
of closely spaced microstrip MIMO antennas for WLAN application,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 310–313, 2011.
[11] K. Wei, J.-Y. Li, L. Wang, Z.-J. Xing, and R. Xu, “Mutual cou-
pling reduction by novel fractal defected ground structure bandgap
filter,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 10, pp. 4328–4335,
Oct. 2016.
[12] S. Farsi, H. Aliakbarian, D. Schreurs, B. Nauwelaers, and
G. A. E. Vandenbosch, “Mutual coupling reduction between planar
antennas by using a simple microstrip U-section,” IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 11, pp. 1501–1503, 2012.
[13] L. Zhao, L. K. Yeung, and K.-L. Wu, “A coupled resonator decoupling
network for two-element compact antenna arrays in mobile termi-
nals,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 5, pp. 2767–2776,
May 2014.
[14] C.-H. Wu, C.-L. Chiu, and T.-G. Ma, “Very compact fully lumped
decoupling network for a coupled two-element array,” IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propagat. Lett, vol. 15, pp. 158–161, 2016.
[15] S. N. Venkatasubramanian, L. Li, A. Lehtovuori, C. Icheln, and
K. Haneda, “Impact of using resistive elements for wideband isolation
improvement,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 52–62,
Jan. 2017.
[16] S. Wang and Z. Du, “Decoupled dual-antenna system using crossed
neutralization lines for LTE/WWAN smartphone applications,” IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 14, pp. 523–526, 2015.
[17] S. Zhang and G. F. Pedersen, “Mutual coupling reduction for UWB
MIMO antennas with a wideband neutralization line,” IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 166–169, 2016.
[18] A. Petosa, Dielectric Resonator Antenna Handbook. Norwood, MA,
USA: Artech House, 2007.
[19] Y. M. Pan, K. W. Leung, and K. M. Luk, “Design of the millimeter-
wave rectangular dielectric resonator antenna using a higher-order
mode,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 59, no. 8, pp. 2780–2788,
Aug. 2011.
[20] A. Dadgarpour, B. Zarghooni, B. S. Virdee, T. A. Denidni, and
A. A. Kishk, “Mutual coupling reduction in dielectric resonator antennas
using metasurface shield for 60-GHz MIMO systems,” IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 477–480, 2017.
[21] M. Farahani, J. Pourahmadazar, M. Akbari, M. Nedil, A. R. Sebak,
and T. A. Denidni, “Mutual coupling reduction in millimeter-wave
MIMO antenna array using a metamaterial polarization-rotator wall,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 2324–2327,
2017.
[22] R. Karimian, A. Kesavan, M. Nedil, and T. A. Denidni, “Low-mutual-
coupling 60-GHz MIMO antenna system with frequency selective sur-
face wall,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 373–376,
2017.
[23] M. J. Al-Hasan, T. A. Denidni, and A. R. Sebak, “Millimeter-
wave compact EBG structure for mutual coupling reduction applica-
tions,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 823–828,
Feb. 2015.
[24] D. Guha, H. Gajera, and C. Kumar, “Perturbation technique to improve
purity of modal fields in dielectric resonator antenna resulting in reduced
cross-polarized radiation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 7,
pp. 3253–3257, Jul. 2015.
[25] D. Guha, H. Gajera, and C. Kumar, “Cross-polarized radiation in a cylin-
drical dielectric resonator antenna: Identification of source, experimental
proof, and its suppression,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63,
no. 4, pp. 1863–1867, Apr. 2015.
[26] M. M. Nikolic, A. R. Djordjevic, and A. Nehorai, “Microstrip antennas
with suppressed radiation in horizontal directions and reduced cou-
pling,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 3469–3476,
Nov. 2005.
[27] V. R. Komanduri, D. R. Jackson, J. T. Williams, and A. R. Mehrotra,
“A general method for designing reduced surface wave microstrip
antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 61, no. 6,
pp. 2887–2894, Jun. 2013.
2234 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
Yong Mei Pan (M’11–SM’17) was born in Huang-
shan, Anhui, China. She received the B.Sc. and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Science and Technology of China,
Hefei, China, in 2004 and 2009, respectively.
From 2009 to 2012, she was a Research Fellow
with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. In 2013,
she joined the School of Electronic and Information
Engineering, South China University of Technology,
Guangzhou, China, as an Associate Professor, where
she is currently a Professor. Her current research interests include dielectric
resonator antennas, leaky-wave antennas, metasurface antennas, and filtering
antennas.
Dr. Pan is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON
A NTENNAS AND P ROPAGATION.
Xin Qin was born in Guilin, Guangxi, China.
She received the B.Eng. degree in communication
engineering from Hainan University, Haikou,
China, in 2016. She is currently pursuing the
M.Eng. degree with the School of Electronic and
Information Engineering, South China University
of Technology, Guangzhou, China.
Her current research interests include antenna
decoupling techniques and millimeter-wave
antennas.
Yu Xiang Sun was born in Yingcheng, Hubei,
China, in 1987. He received the B.Eng. degree in
electronic information science and technology and
the M.Sc. degree in radio physics from Wuhan
University, Wuhan, China, in 2010 and 2012, respec-
tively, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering
from the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
in 2016.
From 2012 to 2013, he was a Research Assistant
with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City
University of Hong Kong, where he has been a
Post-Doctoral Fellow since 2016. His current research interests include
dielectric resonator antennas, GPS antennas, and millimeter-wave antennas.
Dr. Sun serves as a Technical Reviewer for the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON
A NTENNAS AND P ROPAGATION, IEEE A NTENNAS AND W IRELESS P ROPA -
GATION L ETTERS , Sensors, and IET Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation.
Shao Yong Zheng (S’07–M’11–SM’17) was born
in Quanzhou, Fujian, China. He received the B.S.
degree in electronic engineering from Xiamen Uni-
versity, Xiamen, China, in 2003, and the M.Sc.,
M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering
from the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
in 2006, 2008, and 2011, respectively.
From 2011 to 2012, he was a Research Fellow
with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City
University of Hong Kong. He is currently an Asso-
ciate Professor with the Department of Electronics
and Communication Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
His current research interests include microwave/millimeter-wave circuits and
evolutionary algorithms.