An innovative antenna array with high inter element isolation for sub-6GHz 5G MIMO communication systems

Open Access

Abstract

A novel technique is shown to improve the isolation between radiators in antenna arrays. The proposed technique suppresses the surface-wave propagation and reduces substrate loss thereby enhancing the overall performance of the array. This is achieved without affecting the antenna's footprint. The proposed approach is demonstrated on a four-element array for 5G MIMO applications. Each radiating element in the array is constituted from a 3 × 3 matrix of interconnected resonant elements. The technique involves (1) incorporating matching stubs within the resonant elements, (2) framing each of the four-radiating elements inside a dot-wall, and (3) defecting the ground plane with dielectric slots that are aligned under the dot-walls. Results show that with the proposed approach the impedance bandwidth of the array is increased by 58.82% and the improvement in the average isolation between antennas #1&2, #1&3, #1&4 are 8 dB, 14 dB, 16 dB, and 13 dB, respectively. Moreover, improvement in the antenna gain is 4.2% and the total radiation efficiency is 23.53%. These results confirm the efficacy of the technique. The agreement between the simulated and measured results is excellent. Furthermore, the manufacture of the antenna array using the proposed approach is relatively straightforward and cost effective. ; This project has received funding from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant 801538. Also, this work is partially supported by the Icelandic Centre for Research (RANNIS) Grant 206606, the National Science Centre of Poland Grant 2018/31/B/ST7/02369, and the British Council "2019 UK-China-BRI Countries Partnership Initiative" programme, with project titled "Adapting to Industry 4.0 oriented International Education and Research Collaboration".