Efficient Six-Port MIMO Antenna System for 5G Mobile Handsets

Abstract

A six-port MIMO antenna system for forthcoming mobile applications (Sub 6 GHz) is presented in this paper. Four F-shaped antenna elements are placed at four extreme corners and two at the middle side edges of 0.8 mm thick FR4 substrate. An open-ended slot is carved into the ground plane to improve the impedance matching. The proposed antenna operates in the frequency range of 3.4–3.6 GHz (LTE Band 42), with a-10 dB (2:1 voltage standing wave ratio) impedance bandwidth of 200 MHz. The proposed antenna operates in the frequency range of 3.4–3.6 GHz (LTE Band 42), with a-10 dB (2:1 voltage standing wave ratio) impedance bandwidth of 200–MHz. The fabricated MIMO antenna is practically measured and compared with simulated results. The obtained isolation is lower than 20 dB without employing isolation enhancing procedures, making the antenna highly appropriate for 5G smartphone applications. High isolation results in lower values of Envelope Correlation Coefficient (ECC) below 0.01. The antenna’s diversity performance is validated by calculating Total Active Reflection Co-efficient (TARC) which is better than 40 dB. The calculated channel capacity of the six-port antenna array is 32.5 bps/Hz at 20 dB Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). The six-antenna array’s reliability is evaluated by examining the influence of hand effects and Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). The measured results are consistent with simulated results which exhibit the antenna presented in this article is highly capable of mobile phone applications for future cellular communication.

KEYWORDS:

• 5G
• Channel capacity
• Isolation MIMO system
• Specific absorption rate

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank the management of SASTRA Deemed to be University and Keysight Technologies for providing the SASTRA–Keysight Centre of Excellence in RF System Engineering for carrying out the antenna fabrication and measurements.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

D. Rajesh Kumar

D Rajesh Kumar was born in Madurai, Tamilnadu, India in 1987. He received his BE in electronics and communication engineering from Anna University, Tamilnadu, India, in 2008 and ME, in communication systems from Anna University, Tamilnadu, India, in 2013. He has 9 years of teaching experience as an assistant professor at SACSMAVMM Engineering College, Madurai, India. Currently, he is working as a research assistant and pursuing PhD in the field of antennas for 5G communication at SASTRA Deemed University, Tamilnadu, India. His research areas include mobile phone antenna design and RF system design. Email: [email protected]

G. Venkat Babu

G Venkat Babu is an assistant professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication, SEEE, SASTRA Deemed University, Tamilnadu, India. He received his BE in electronics and communication from Bharathidasan University, Trichy, ME in microwave communication and RADAR from Dr B R Ambedkar University, Agra, India and a PhD degree in electronics and communication from Bhagwant University, Ajmer, India. His research is related to Reconfigurable antennas and RF-MEMS. He has academic and research experience of about 20 years. He has published his research work in reputed journals, international and national conferences. He co-authored a book in the field of electromagnetic fields. He is a Member of IEEE (Society APS&MTS), Life Member of IETE and ISTE.