Eight element MIMO antenna array with tri-band response for modern smartphones

Abstract

This article presents an eight-element tri-band Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna system for future handheld devices. The suggested antenna system consists of a main and sideboards. The feed lines are connected on the main board while the antennas are placed on sideboards, two on each side separately. The total dimension of the main board is $150\times 75$ mm2, and the sideboard is $150\times 7$ mm2. The antenna resonates at three distinct 5G allocated bands of 3.1-3.7 GHz, 4.47-4.91 GHz, and 5.5-6.0 GHz with impedance bandwidths of 600 MHz, 440 MHz, and 450 MHz, respectively. The antenna system provides pattern and spatial diversity characteristics with radiation and total efficiency of 78% and 62% and peak gain of 5.8 dBi. The MIMO system is fabricated, and the measured results are found to be in good agreement with the simulations. The isolation among radiating elements in all resonating bands is found to be >16 dB. The vital MIMO performance parameters such as envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is less than 0.2 for any two antenna array meeting the required standard of less than 0.5 alongside the mean effective gain or MEG ratio of any two antenna meeting the required standard of less than 3 dB for power balance and optimal diversity. The Channel Capacity (CC) is found to be 41.1 bps/Hz, approximately 3 times that of $2\times $ 2 MIMO operations.