IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
16, 2017
A Compact Four-Element MIMO/Diversity Antenna
With Enhanced Bandwidth
Debdeep Sarkar, Student Member, IEEE, and Kumar Vaibhav Srivastava, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this letter, a four-element wideband multiple-
input–multiple-output (MIMO) configuration consisting of
inverted L-monopole antenna (ILA) elements is proposed. An ad-
ditional low-frequency operating mode arises in the MIMO system
due to symmetric arrangement of elements with interconnected
ground, apart from the resonance of the isolated ILA. Utilizing this
mode, the proposed MIMO antenna operates in wide frequency
range of 2.70–4.94 GHz (impedance bandwidth = 58.6%). The
proposed four-element MIMO system occupies compact total area
of 0.13λ20 (λ0 = highest operating wavelength) and has no com-
plex decoupling scheme. Satisfactory interelement isolation (≥11
dB) and directional pattern with average gain ≈ 4 dBi are achieved
throughout the operating band of the proposed MIMO antenna.
Furthermore, envelope correlation coefficient < 0.1 and mean ef-
fective gain ratio close to 1 are obtained in the working frequencies,
confirming satisfactory MIMO/diversity performance.
Index Terms—Bandwidth enhancement, interconnected ground,
inverted L-monopole antenna (ILA), multiple-input–multiple-
output (MIMO).
I. INTRODUCTION
ULTIPLE-INPUT–MULTIPLE-OUTPUT (MIMO)
M technology is deployed extensively in modern-day
wireless communication systems involving 4G Long-Term
Evolution (LTE) and 5G networks since it can significantly
improve the spectral efficiency within limited power levels [1].
Such MIMO antenna systems should have high interelement
isolation and low correlation between the individual element
patterns, while maintaining low interelement spacing [1].
Also, new wireless standards such as 802.11 ac wireless local
area network and 802.11m Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access (WiMAX) have been devised to support
from four to eight spatial streams [2], [3], which necessitates
the implementation of 4 × 4 and 8 × 8 MIMO antenna systems.
However, the area occupied by individual antenna elements in
the MIMO system (in terms of square wavelength) should be
small enough to render the whole design compact [4]. Several
such MIMO antenna systems have been designed to fulfil these
stringent design requirements on bandwidth, gain, footprint,
Manuscript received May 7, 2017; revised June 13, 2017; accepted June
28, 2017. Date of publication July 14, 2017; date of current version August
21, 2017. This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research
Board, India, under Project SB/S3/EECE/0164/2015. (Corresponding author:
Debdeep Sarkar.)
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian In-
stitute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India (e-mail: debdeep1989@
gmail.com; kvs@iitk.ac.in).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2724439
1536-1225 © 2017 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.
2469
isolation, and correlation [5]–[14]. Many compact, narrow,
single-band, four-element MIMO antennas are reported, which
make use of diagonally arranged planar inverted-F antenna/slot
elements [5] and planar H-shaped directive antenna elements
[6]. Multiband MIMO antennas are designed in [7]–[10], which
utilize directional triple-band Yagi–Uda elements [7], F-shaped
quadband printed slots [8], coplanar waveguide-fed quadband
monopoles loaded with split-ring resonator (SRR), interdigital
capacitors [9], and microstrip-fed inverted L-monopoles loaded
with complementary split-ring resonator (SRR) [10]. For
implementing wideband MIMO or array structures, different
techniques, such as microstrip-fed slots [11], common wide-
band radiating element [12], dipole with V-shaped ground
branch [13], or printed SRR-loaded monopole antenna with
ring-shaped ground [14], are used.
In this letter, a four-element MIMO configuration is pro-
posed, where inverted L-monopole antennas (ILAs) are arranged
in symmetric fashion with interconnected ground plane. Such
structure supports a lower frequency resonance in addition to
the inherent ILA resonance, which merges with the ILA mode,
thereby providing bandwidth enhancement. Thus, the proposed
MIMO antenna is capable of operating in the LTE (band num-
ber 42,43) and WiMAX (3.3–3.8 GHz) frequencies, along with
sub-6-GHz bands for commercial 5G applications [15]. The pro-
posed four-element MIMO system has compact footprint with
low envelope correlation coefficient and high interelement iso-
lation. Full-wave simulations in Ansys HFSS and experimental
measurements on fabricated prototypes are used to validate the
proposed design methodology.
II. DESIGN OF SINGLE ANTENNA ELEMENT AND
INTERCONNECTED GROUND PLANE
A. Isolated ILA Element
Fig. 1(a) shows the schematic diagram of microstrip-fed ILA.
Such ILAs are often preferred over linear printed monopoles
due to their reduced footprint [16]. FR4-epoxy substrate (εr =
4.4, tan δ = 0.02) of cross section LS × LS and thickness
1.6 mm is used for the design. The working frequency of this
ILA is determined by the length parameters L1 and L2 [16]. The
ILA of Fig. 1(a) operates at 4.41 GHz with impedance band-
width (IBW) of 20.71% [see Fig. 1(b)]. It should be noted that
L1 + L2 ≈ 0.256λ1 , where λ1 denotes the free-space wave-
length at 4.41 GHz. The IBW of the ILA can be controlled
by tuning the ground length LG and feed-offset parameter L3
appropriately.
2470 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram of microstrip-fed ILA, to be used as element for

the proposed MIMO system. Dimensions (in mm): L S = 20, L 1 = 5.4, L 2 =
12, L G = 12, W F = 3, W M = 2, and L 3 = 7.5. (b) Variation of |S 1 1 | (dB)
with frequency.
Fig. 2. Design evolution for the ground plane structure for use in four-element
MIMO configuration. Only one ILA is used as excitation element. Here, L A =
40 mm and w S = 0.3 mm.
B. Investigation on Symmetric Interconnected Ground Plane
for MIMO Configuration
To realize a MIMO system using such printed ILAs as dis-
cussed in Section II-A, the following design criteria must be
satisfied.
1) Interelement isolation must be kept higher than 10 dB in
the entire operating band.
2) More number of elements must be accommodated within
a square wavelength.
3) Continuous interconnected ground plane is needed for the
MIMO configuration to be useful in practical application
scenario.
It should also be noted that microstrip-fed printed monopole
antennas generally have significant unbalanced current flow-
ing in the ground plane. Thus, when multiple ILAs will be Fig. 3. Frequency variation of |S 1 1 | (dB) for the five different configurations
kept in a connected ground environment of compact electri- shown in Fig. 2.
cal area, the S11 response and radiation characteristics of the
elements can get altered significantly as compared to that of
an isolated element. Also, the connected ground will lead to
higher interelement coupling, degrading the isolation character-
istics. Thus, achieving all the above-mentioned design criteria
requires a systematic design procedure.
In this section, investigations on a rotationally symmet-
ric ground plane for possible implementation of four-element
MIMO configuration are carried out. The following objectives
are achieved by this ground-plane topology. Fig. 4. For the design Case-V of Fig. 2, surface current distribution on the
1) The effective ground plane size is increased due to the ILA and the connected ground plane at (a) 3.11 and (b) 4.41 GHz.
interconnection. This results in the occurrence of a new
operating mode for the proposed configuration.
2) The symmetry of this interconnected ground plane allows frequency mode around 3.11 GHz apart from the original ILA
each excitation element to radiate in mutually orthogonal resonance at 4.41 GHz. In order to have a four-element ILA
directions, leading to pattern diversity. system with interconnected ground plane, the design Case-V
The design evolution of such symmetric interconnected is obtained by including the thin strips of thickness wS as
ground plane is discussed in a step-by-step manner in Fig. 2. The shown in Fig. 2. The single-feed antenna as in Case-V (see
five design cases of Fig. 2 illustrate the development of symmet- Fig. 2) exhibits a wide IBW of 2.81–4.94 GHz (54.78%), utiliz-
ric ground plane aimed for a four-element MIMO system, keep- ing the merging of the antenna resonances at 3.11 and 4.41
ing only one excitation element. The corresponding frequency GHz, respectively. Furthermore, Fig. 4 depicts the distribu-
variations of input reflection coefficient S11 are shown in Fig. 3. tion of surface current on both the connected ground plane
It can be observed from Fig. 3 that both the designs Case-III and the ILA at 3.11 and 4.41 GHz, respectively. It can be
and Case-IV show the presence of an additional low operating observed that at the induced mode at 3.11 GHz, the current
SARKAR AND SRIVASTAVA: COMPACT FOUR-ELEMENT MIMO/DIVERSITY ANTENNA WITH ENHANCED BANDWIDTH
Fig. 5. (a) Proposed four element MIMO configuration (L A = 40 mm) and
(b) frequency variation of simulated S-parameters when port-1 is excited.
Fig. 6. Simulated 3-D radiation patterns for the proposed MIMO antenna (see
Fig. 5) at (a) 3.15 and (b) 4.40 GHz, when element 1 is excited (other ports are
terminated with matched loads).
traverses extra resonant length as compared to 4.41 GHz. How-
ever, not much current distribution is observed at the other pos-
sible three locations/ground, where other ILAs can be placed as
excitation elements. This implies that the ground plane can sup-
port orthogonal currents as noninteracting characteristic modes
of the system, which can result in pattern diversity MIMO
performance.
III. PROPOSED MIMO ANTENNA CONFIGURATION
Intuitively following the analysis as described in Sec-
tion III, four ILAs are arranged as shown in Fig. 5(a)
to realize the proposed symmetric MIMO configuration.
Fig. 5(b) shows the S-parameters corresponding to excita-
tion of element 1 in the MIMO system of Fig. 5(a). It is
observed that the proposed MIMO system has operating
frequency range of 2.70–4.94 GHz (IBW 58.6%). Fig. 5(b)
shows that the mutual coupling between diagonally placed
element pair (1, 3) is very small throughout the operating
band (|S31 | ≤ −16 dB). On the other hand, elements 2 and 4
exhibit high degree of coupling just at the start of the operating
frequency range (S21 = S41 ≈ −11 dB around 2.7 GHz).
This can be attributed to the strong coupling currents flowing
in the connecting strips, as indicated in Fig. 4. However, at
the higher frequencies, the coupling decreases considerably
(S21 = S41 ≤ −15 dB for frequencies >3.1 GHz). Thus, the
overall interelement isolation performance is satisfactory for the
proposed four-element MIMO antenna. Fig. 6 shows the sim-
ulated three-dimensional (3-D) radiation pattern when element
1 is excited, with the other ports at matched load termination.
2471
Fig. 7. (a) Top view of the fabricated prototype for the proposed MIMO
configuration [see Fig. 5(a)]. (b) Frequency variation of measured S-parameters
when port-1 is excited.
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured 2-D radiation patterns for the proposed an-
tenna [see Fig. 5(a)]: (a) xy plane at f1 , (b) xy plane at f2 , (c) yz plane at f1 ,
and (d) yz plane at f2 . Here, f1 , sim = 3.15 GHz, f2 , sim = 4.40 GHz, f1 , meas =
3.30 GHz, and f2 , meas = 4.33 GHz.
Simulated peak gains of 4.307 and 3.831 dBi are observed at
operating frequencies of 3.15 and 4.41 GHz, respectively.
Fig. 7(a) shows the fabricated prototype of the proposed four-
element MIMO antenna (top-view). It is observed from Fig. 7(b)
that the measured working frequency range for the antenna is
2.86–4.90 GHz (IBW 52.58%). Also, the interelement coupling
levels (S21 , S31 , and S41 ) match well with the simulated vari-
ations shown in Fig. 5(b). The 2-D radiation patterns are mea-
sured for the fabricated prototype in anechoic chamber along the
principal planes (xy plane and yz plane) for element 1, keeping
the other antenna ports terminated with matched loads. Fig. 8
shows that good agreement exists between these simulated and
measured radiation patterns. Average peak gain greater than
4 dBi and average radiation efficiency of 95.36% is observed
for the entire antenna operating band.
2472
Fig. 9. Frequency variation of (a) envelope correlation coefficient (ECC or
ρe , i j ) and (b) mean effective gain ratio (MEGi /MEGj ) in dB, for the proposed
antenna [see Fig. 5(a)], where i = 1 and j = 2, 3, 4.
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF PROPOSED STRUCTURE TO OTHER WIDEBAND
FOUR-ELEMENT MIMO ANTENNAS; A T = TOTAL ELECTRICAL AREA, IBW =
IMPEDANCE BANDWIDTH, λ0 = c/f0 OPERATING WAVELENGTH FOR AREA
CALCULATION, Im in = MINIMUM ISOLATION, G p = PEAK GAIN
Design A T (λ20 ) f0 (GHz) IBW (%) Imin (dB) G p (dBi) Common Ground
[11] 0.500 2.50 83 16.6 >7
[12] 0.605 1.80 46.8 15 ≈6
[13] 0.096 2.32 60.6 10 2.1
[14] 0.109 2.50 96.2 14 4 No
Prop. 0.131 2.70 58.6 11 4 Yes
To evaluate the MIMO/diversity characteristics, the envelope
correlation coefficient (ECC or ρe,ij ) as well as the mean effec-
tive gain ratio MEGi /MEGj (in dB) are evaluated for antenna
pair (i, j), over the frequency range 3–5 GHz (200 MHz res-
olution). The far-field pattern-based formulas as suggested in
[17] are used for both ECC and MEG calculation, assuming
uniform outdoor propagation environment. Fig. 9(a) shows that
the criteria of ρe,ij < 0.1 is valid for the entire working band
of the proposed four-element MIMO system. Average MEG of
−3.3 dB is achieved for all the four elements. Also, the MEG
ratio is well within the prescribed limit of ±3 dB [see Fig. 9(b)],
as suggested in [18].
IV. CONCLUSION
In this letter, a low-cost FR4-based four-element MIMO con-
figuration of ILAs with interconnected ground plane is designed.
The proposed MIMO system achieves wide impedance band-
width by merging of the ILA resonance with an additional mode
occurring in the MIMO structure. Simulated and measured re-
sults exhibit good match between the S-parameters and radiation
pattern, along with MIMO performance metrics such as ECC
and MEG ratio. Table I provides a comparison between the pro-
posed MIMO antenna and other four-element wideband anten-
nas for the 2–6 GHz frequency range. It can be observed that the
proposed MIMO antenna has smaller footprint compared to the
antennas in [11] and [12]. The antenna in [13] has slightly wider
bandwidth (by 2%) and more compact dimensions as compared
to the proposed structure. However, the proposed MIMO an-
tenna has 2 dB higher gain, lesser ECC value, and much simpler
design methodology, as compared to the work in [13]. Also, the
MIMO antenna in [13] shows average radiation efficiency level
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017
around 70%. This indicates that average MEG for [13] will be
about −4.5 dB in uniform 3-D propagation environment, which
is less than the proposed antenna. Although the design reported
in [14] has extremely wideband width with good isolation, it
utilizes separate ground planes similar to those proposed in [8]
and [9], which significantly limits its practical application sce-
nario [17]. The MEG for the individual elements as well as
the MEG ratio for the proposed MIMO antenna with connected
ground are well within the prescribed limits, similar to [14].
Thus, the proposed MIMO configuration can find potential use
in portable wireless routers/adapters for existing 4G and future
5G networks.
REFERENCES
[1] M. S. Sharawi, “Printed multi-band MIMO antenna systems and their per-
formance metrics,” IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 218–
232, Oct. 2013.
[2] Q. Li et al., “MIMO techniques in WiMAX and LTE: A feature overview,”
IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 86–92, May 2010.
[3] O. Bejarano, E. W. Knightly, and M. Y. Park, “IEEE 802.11ac: From chan-
No nelization to multi-user MIMO,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 51, no. 10,
Yes pp. 84–90, Oct. 2013.
Yes [4] S. Soltani and R. D. Murch, “A compact planar printed MIMO antenna
design,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 1140–1149,
Mar. 2015.
[5] C. Y. Chiu and R. D. Murch, “Compact four-port antenna suitable for
portable MIMO devices,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 7,
pp. 142–144, 2008.
[6] Y. Luo, Q. Chu, J. Li, and Y. Wu, “A planar H-shaped directive antenna
and its application in compact MIMO antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 61, no. 9, pp. 4810–4814, Sep. 2013.
[7] A. D. Capobianco et al., “A compact MIMO array of planar end-fire
antennas for WLAN applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 59,
no. 9, pp. 3462–3465, Sep. 2011.
[8] R. Karimian, H. Oraizi, S. Fakhte, and M. Farahani, “Novel F-shaped
quad-band printed slot antenna for WLAN and WiMAX MIMO systems,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 12, pp. 405–408, 2013.
[9] D. Sarkar, A. Singh, K. Saurav, and K. V. Srivastava, “A four element
quad-band MIMO antenna employing split ring resonator and interdigital
capacitor,” Microw., Antennas Propag., vol. 9, no. 13, pp. 1453–1460, Oct.
2015.
[10] D. Sarkar, K. Saurav, and K. V. Srivastava, “A compact four element
CSRR-loaded antenna for dual band pattern diversity MIMO applica-
tions,” in Proc. 46th Eur. Microw. Conf., 2016, pp. 1315–1318.
[11] M. Sonkki, D. Pfeil, V. Hovinen, and K. R. Dandekar, “Wideband planar
four-element linear antenna array,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett.,
vol. 13, pp. 1663–1666, 2014.
[12] A. MoradiKordalivand, T. A. Rahman and M. Khalily, “Common ele-
ments wideband MIMO antenna system for WiFi/LTE access-point appli-
cations,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 13, pp. 1601–1604,
2014.
[13] H. Wang, L. Liu, Z. Zhang, Y. Li, and Z. Feng, “A wideband compact
WLAN/WiMAX MIMO antenna based on dipole with V-shaped ground
branch,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 5, pp. 2290–2295,
May 2015.
[14] R. Anitha, P. V. Vinesh, K. C. Prakash, P. Mohanan, and K. Vasudevan,
“A compact quad element slotted ground wideband antenna for MIMO
applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 10, pp. 4550–
4553, Oct. 2016.
[15] Spectrum for 4G and 5G, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., San Diego, CA,
USA, Oct. 2016.
[16] Q. Luo, C. Quigley, J. R. Pereira, and H. M. Salgado, “Inverted-L antennas
array in a wireless USB dongle for MIMO application,” in Proc. Eur. Conf.
Antennas Propag., 2012, pp. 1909–1912.
[17] M. S. Sharawi, “Current misuses and future prospects for printed multiple-
input, multiple-output antenna systems,” IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag.,
vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 162–170, Apr. 2017.
[18] S. C. K. Ko and R. D. Murch, “Compact integrated diversity antenna for
wireless communications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 49, no. 6,
pp. 954–960, Jun. 2001.