1754 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

14, 2015

Compact Offset Microstrip-Fed MIMO Antenna for

Band-Notched UWB Applications
Le Kang, Hui Li, Xinhuai Wang, and Xiaowei Shi

Abstract—A compact multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) The use of multi-element antennas can effectively increase
antenna is presented for ultrawideband (UWB) applications with the channel capacity and improve the reliability of UWB wire-
band-notched function. The proposed antenna is composed of two less communications. However, strong mutual coupling caused
offset microstrip-fed antenna elements with UWB performance.
To achieve high isolation and polarization diversity, the antenna between the antenna elements will deteriorate the performance
elements are placed perpendicular to each other. A parasitic of UWB MIMO system. Hence, isolation enhancement be-
T-shaped strip between the radiating elements is employed as a comes one of the main challenges in MIMO antenna designs.
decoupling structure to further suppress the mutual coupling. Until now, various types of decoupling techniques have been
In addition, the notched band at 5.5 GHz is realized by etching reported [5]–[10]. In [5]–[8], the mutual coupling can be re-
a pair of L-shaped slits on the ground. The antenna prototype
with a compact size of mm has been fabricated duced by adopting different decoupling elements, such as the
and measured. Experimental results show that the antenna has an tree-like [7] and floating parasitic [8] structures. However, the
impedance bandwidth of 3.08-11.8 GHz with reflection coefficient structures in [7] and [8] occupy much space and make the an-
less than dB, except the rejection band of 5.03-5.97 GHz. Be- tenna configuration more complex. Diversity antennas are also
sides, port isolation, envelope correlation coefficient and radiation a promising choice in achieving low mutual coupling between
characteristics are also investigated. The results indicate that the
MIMO antenna is suitable for band-notched UWB applications. antenna elements owing to the orthogonal radiation patterns
[9], [10]. Moreover, in order to reject the interference with the
Index Terms—Band-notched, multiple-input–multiple-output existing wireless communication systems such as the Wireless
(MIMO) antenna, offset microstrip-fed, ultrawideband (UWB)
antenna. Local Area Networks (WLAN) operating at 5.15–5.85 GHz,
antennas are required to filter out the undesired band. Recently,
several UWB MIMO antennas with band-reject operation have
been presented [11]–[13]. The band-notched characteristics
I. INTRODUCTION
are realized by introducing an arc shaped slot [11], a split-ring
resonator (SRR) slot [12] and an open stub [13] in the antenna

S INCE the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) re- element, respectively. Though good performance can be ob-
leased the spectrum from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz for commercial tained, the smallest dimension of the antennas with an area of
applications [1], ultrawideband (UWB) techniques have drawn mm [12] is larger than that of the proposed antenna.
considerable attention due to the merits such as wide band- In this letter, a compact band-notched UWB MIMO antenna
width, high data rate, and low cost. UWB antennas, as one of with two identical antenna elements is proposed and analyzed.
the key components of UWB wireless communication system, The antenna element with a rhombic slot is fed by an offset mi-
have been widely investigated. Although UWB communication crostrip-fed line. Compared with the conventional center-fed
system makes use of huge frequency bands, the permitted power slot antennas, the offset microstrip-fed slot antenna can pro-
spectral density of the UWB signal is rather limited to avoid vide a broader impedance bandwidth [14]. The orthogonally
interference with other systems [2]. The multiple-input mul- fed MIMO antenna achieves not only polarization diversity but
tiple-output (MIMO) techniques enable the transmission of data also high isolation. Moreover, a parasitic T-shaped strip is in-
over multiple channels, and thus increase the channel capacity troduced between the antenna elements to further reduce the
without additional power requirements [3]. Besides, MIMO an- mutual coupling and a pair of L-shaped slits are etched on the
tennas can be used for achieving diversity performance and mit- ground to generate a notched band. Meanwhile, the proposed
igating the effects of multipath fading [4]. antenna occupies a small area of mm . Details of
antenna design and both the simulated and measured results are
presented in the following sections.
Manuscript received February 28, 2015; revised April 03, 2015; accepted
April 08, 2015. Date of publication April 13, 2015; date of current version
September 17, 2015. This work was supported in part by the Natural Science II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant 2014JQ8350 and the funds
for Space TT&C Communication Innovation and Exploration under Grant A. Antenna Configuration
SMC1401.
The authors are with the Science and Technology on Antenna and Microwave Fig. 1 illustrates the geometry of the proposed band-notched
Laboratory, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail: Lkang@xidian. UWB MIMO antenna. The designed antenna with an overall
edu.cn).
size of mm is printed on an FR4 substrate with a
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. thickness of 1.6 mm and a relative dielectric constant of 4.4.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2015.2422571 It consists of two orthogonal microstrip-fed lines, a parasitic

1536-1225 © 2015 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.

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 KANG et al.: COMPACT OFFSET MICROSTRIP-FED MIMO ANTENNA 1755

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna.

Fig. 3. Simulated S-parameters of the MIMO antennas with different

configurations.

microstrip line is shifted from the center, and thereby enhances

the impedance bandwidth of the antenna. The offset distance
has a significant influence on the impedance enhancement
of the antenna element, and an optimum value mm is
selected in this design. The feed lines of Ant. 1 and 2 both have
the same widths of 3 mm corresponding to 50- characteristic
Fig. 2. Design evolution of the UWB antenna elements.
impedance. Then a three-stage feed line is employed as an
impedance transformer to adjust the impedance matching at
T-shaped strip, and a ground plane etched with a rhombic slot 5–8 GHz (denoted as Ant. 3). Finally, an impedance bandwidth
and a pair of L-shaped slits. Both the microstrip-fed lines at an of larger than 3.1–10 GHz can be obtained to meet the band-
offset distance from the center have three stages for impedance width requirement for UWB operation.
transforming. The parasitic strip placed between the antenna el-
ements plays an important role in isolation improvement. It con- C. Effects of Parasitic Strip and Etched Slits
sists of two major parts: a strip along the diagonal and the other The simulated S-parameters of the MIMO antennas with dif-
perpendicular to the diagonal. The ground plane is designed on ferent configurations are given in Fig. 3. As can be seen, the
the other side of the substrate. The slits etched on the ground basic UWB-MIMO antenna with orthogonal feeding structures
are used to produce a notched band at 5.5 GHz. The numer- achieves port isolation of better than dB in the UWB spec-
ical analysis and geometry refinement of the antenna structure trum. To further improve the isolation, a parasitic T-shaped strip
were carried out by using electromagnetic simulation software is added between the antenna elements as a decoupling struc-
HFSS from ANSYS. The optimal parameters are recorded as ture. The strip acts as a parasitic resonator, which provides an
follows (in millimeters): , , additional coupling path to counteract the current coupled di-
, , , , , rectly from one antenna element on the other [5], [6].
, , , , To investigate the influence of the T-shaped strip, the surface
, , , , , current distributions at 6.0 GHz are shown in Fig. 4, in which
, , and . Port 1 is excited and Port 2 is terminated with a 50- load.
Without the strip, strong coupled current can be observed on
B. Design of UWB Antenna Element the right antenna element, which flows in the direction opposite
Fig. 2 shows the design evolution of UWB antenna elements to that of the current along the left antenna element. With a total
with different feeding structures. Compared with the center-fed length of 15.6 mm ( ), the strip can excite a half-wave-
printed antenna with a rhombic slot (denoted as Ant. 1), good length resonant mode at about 6.0 GHz. By adopting the para-
impedance matching over a wider frequency range can be sitic structure, larger surface current is induced along the strip
achieved by adopting an offset microstrip-fed line (denoted and an additional coupling path is created between the adjacent
as Ant. 2). This is due to the fact that the electromagnetic elements through the strip. Since this coupling path can produce
coupling between the feed line and the ground improves as the reverse current to cancel out the original coupling. The current

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 1756 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015

Fig. 4. Simulated current distributions at 6.0 GHz (a) without the T-shaped
strip and (b) with the T-shaped strip.

Fig. 6. Simulated and measured S-parameters of the proposed antenna.

Fig. 5. Photograph of the fabricated antenna.

coupled on the right antenna element decreases substantially

and hence the mutual coupling at 4.6–8.5 GHz is reduced to less
than dB with little effect on the impedance matching.
The pair of open-ended slits etched on the ground are em-
ployed to generate band-notched function. The notched band
can be controlled by adjusting the lengths of the slits. It is found
that the total length of each slit is taken as 8.6 mm ( ),
which is about a quarter of the guided wavelength at 5.5 GHz.
Therefore, a notched band of 5-5.9 GHz can be generated to re-
ject the 5.2/5.8-GHz WLAN operation.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

A. S-Parameters
The antenna prototype shown in Fig. 5 was measured with
the Agilent N5244A vector network analyzer. Fig. 6 presents
the simulated and measured S-parameters against frequency.
Measured results show that the antenna provides an impedance
bandwidth ( and dB) from 3.08 to 11.8 GHz
except the notched band of 5.03-5.97 GHz. Thus, the band-
width requirement for UWB applications is satisfied, and
band-notched function is achieved to avoid the potential in-
terference of 5.2/5.8-GHz WLAN operation. It also can be
seen that the measured port isolations ( ) are below
dB throughout the whole UWB band. Due to the effects Fig. 7. Measured radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at 3.5, 7.5, and
of manufacturing tolerance and measurement environment, 9.5 GHz: (a) -plane, (b) -plane, and (c) -plane.
measured port isolation is slightly worse than the simulation
at lower frequencies from 3 to 5.5 GHz. In MIMO systems, patterns ( , , and -planes) at 3.5, 7.5, and 9.5 GHz
mutual coupling of better than dB is considered to be are plotted in Fig. 7. Since the MIMO antenna consists of two
acceptable for practical applications. identical elements located perpendicular to each other, the pat-
terns of Port 1 and 2 are almost similar with a 90 rotation. As
B. Radiation Characteristics observed, the radiation patterns are quasi-omnidirectional in the
The radiation characteristics of the proposed antenna have -plane ( -plane of Port 1 and -plane of Port 2). The
been measured with Port 1 or 2 excited. Measured radiation asymmetric antenna structure contributes to the high-level cross

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 KANG et al.: COMPACT OFFSET MICROSTRIP-FED MIMO ANTENNA 1757

IV. CONCLUSION
A UWB MIMO antenna with band-notched characteristics is
presented. The offset microstrip-fed lines are employed to feed
the antenna with wideband impedance matching. Port isolation
is improved by using a simple decoupling structure. Measured
results show that the proposed antenna achieves an impedance
bandwidth of larger than 3.1–10.6 GHz except sharp rejection
band of 5.03–5.97 GHz. Besides, low mutual coupling of better
than dB and low envelope correlation coefficient of less
than 0.02 can also be obtained through the whole UWB band.
Fig. 8. Measured gains and radiation efficiencies of the proposed antenna. With the features mentioned above and a compact size, the pro-
posed antenna can be a promising candidate for MIMO/diver-
sity systems.

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