Int. J. Electron. Commun.

(AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Electronics and

Communications (AEÜ)
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aeue

Regular paper

Compact quasi-elliptical-self-complementary four-port super-wideband

MIMO antenna with dual band elimination characteristics
Dinesh Kumar Raheja a,b, Sachin Kumar c,⇑, Binod Kumar Kanaujia d
a
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Ambedkar Institute of Advanced Communication Technologies and Research, Delhi 110031, India
b
University School of Information, Communication & Technology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi 110078, India
c
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai 603203, India
d
School of Computational & Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, a compact coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed quasi-elliptical-self-complementary antenna
Received 14 August 2019 (QESCA) exhibiting super-wideband (SWB) characteristics with dual-band notches for four-port
Accepted 19 November 2019 multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems is presented. In order to achieve better inter-element
isolation and polarization diversity, the four radiating elements of the MIMO antenna are placed orthog-
onal to each other. Each MIMO antenna element has an elliptical shape conductor patch and a slot, which
Keywords: is a complement of similar shape, both present on the same side of the substrate. At each port, the pro-
MIMO
posed antenna shows excellent SWB characteristics (1.25–40 GHz), providing a bandwidth ratio of 32:1.
Quasi-elliptical
Self-complementary antenna
Further, two independent slits are loaded on each antenna element to reject Wi-MAX (3.5 GHz) and
Super-wideband WLAN (5.5 GHz) bands from SWB. Inter-element isolation of more than 18 dB up to 15 GHz and over
25 dB in the higher frequency range is obtained. Measured parameters of the fabricated MIMO antenna
prototype are in good agreement with the simulated results.
Ó 2019 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction switch between the allocated channels at the same time maintain-
ing the mobile communication link. The spectrum sensing is to be
Commonly known unlicensed ultra-wideband (UWB) (ranging carried over a very large range of frequencies [6]. Thus, SWB anten-
from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz) has a bandwidth ratio of 3.4:1; the ratio of nas are very much useful for applications like CR.
highest and lowest cut-off frequency in (S11
10 dB) impedance Self-complementary antennas (SCA) are commonly used for
bandwidth range [1]. Generally, if the radiating range of an SWB communication systems. Usually, an antenna with self-
antenna is more than 500 MHz or 20% of its centre frequency, it complementary property is comprised of a metallic radiating patch
is known as the UWB antenna. However, if the bandwidth ratio and a slot with the complement of a similar geometry implanted in
is 10:1 or higher, then it is termed as a super-wideband (SWB) the ground plane. The pioneer research work on SCA was reported
antenna [2]. Contemporary research and development in UWB by Y. Mushiake, who discovered the principle of self-
and SWB communication systems have transformed digital com- complementarity and constant input impedance (independent of
munication from theoretical concepts to a practically useful system frequency) property of such antennas. Various extensions of the
for both military and civilian applications. The modern applica- self-complementary principle on planar geometries including
tions related to spread-spectrum based communication terminals, log-periodic, solid structures and other axially symmetric shapes
wireless networks, multi-user and multi-channel communication, were presented [7,8]. Furthermore, a monopole radiating patch
navigation and tracking systems, high-speed data networks and with its complementary slot antenna was presented in [9], spiral
cognitive radio (CR) have seen tremendous growth in recent years SCA in [10], with relatively large bandwidth. Such self-
[3–5]. In CR, the quality of service depends upon the effective complementary antennas have an input impedance of 188.5 O.
deployment of unused RF spectrum. Spectrum sensing plays a Usually, the antennas are excited through a standard coaxial feed
key role in CR to repeatedly search for available channels and line of 50 O, but in the case of SCA, an impedance matching net-
work/balun is also required. The integration of SCA and matching
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Electronics & Communication Engi- network increases the design complexity of the transceiver sys-
neering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai 603203, India. tems making them bulky and expensive. In addition, a quasi-
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Kumar). self-complementary antenna (QSCA) comprised of semi-circular

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeue.2019.153001
1434-8411/Ó 2019 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
2 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001

monopole was presented in [11], a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed is designed for four-port SWB MIMO systems, with connected
inverted L-shaped QSCA in [12]. Another QSCA with wideband ground planes and two notch bands.
rejection capability was analysed in [13]. The antenna structure
was made of truncated semi-elliptical complementary monopole 2. Antenna geometry and design
loaded with an L-shaped slit to obtain continuous wideband rejec-
tion for a range of 4–6.5 GHz. 2.1. Single element SWB QESCA
The fractal geometry due to its symmetrical design (similar pat-
tern and ratio) possesses periodic properties. Thus, to develop SWB The schematic details of the proposed antenna element are
antennas, multiple iterations of fractal design patches have been given in Fig. 1(a) and (b). The basic building block of SWB MIMO
used by many researchers. In [14], the authors used modified configuration consists of a coplanar monopole antenna with the
star-triangular fractal geometry. Hexagonal monopole antenna quasi-elliptical patch as the main radiating element. The input
with Sierpinski fractal slots [15] and octagonal fractal antenna with impedance (Zin) of a self-complementary planar antenna is
defected ground [16] to obtain SWB characteristics were also pro- expressed through Mushiake relationship [7]
posed. A coplanar SWB antenna comprised of two asymmetric
folded loops with a flared slot and printed on 72.5  103 mm2 sub- Z0
Z in ¼  60p  188:5X ð1Þ
strate area was presented. The antenna has a bandwidth ratio of 2
41.7:1 [17]. A multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) configura- This relationship represents a constant-impedance property,
tion with two circular QSCA printed parallel to each other, in mir- which is independent of frequency, wavelength and antenna
ror fashion was reported [18]. In this MIMO design, two wide slots dimensions. According to the principle of self-complementarity, a
were implanted in the ground plane to reduce inter-element cou- suitably designed self-complementary antenna can be used for
pling between the radiators. In [19], a four-port UWB MIMO struc- extremely large bandwidths [8]. Considering this principle, an
ture was developed by using two different radii of the conducting elliptical configuration is chosen to design an antenna for SWB
patch and a slot in the ground plane to make QSCA. This four- operation.
element MIMO shows good performance in 3.5–12 GHz band, In Fig. 1, the dimensions A1 and B1 are the semi-major and semi-
but slightly poor isolation level in the lower frequency range. minor axes of the elliptical monopole radiator, respectively. The
Another two-port MIMO antenna with dual-band rejection charac- antenna element has high eccentricity to generate and sustain
teristics was published in [20], where QSCA was designed by com- higher order modes, necessary for obtaining broad bandwidth. A
bining four quasi-elliptical geometries with different dimensions slightly off-centred semi-elliptical slot, with semi-major and
like a castor leaf shape on 66.8  40 mm2 size substrate. A two- semi-minor axes as A2 and B2, respectively, is etched from
port SWB MIMO antenna composed of two diagonally placed the ground plane conductor to construct a single QESCA element.
quarter-circle monopole patches and backed with a similar orthog- The size of the proposed SWB antenna element is 26  31 mm2.
onal ground for polarization diversity was presented [21]. The The antenna is designed on single-layered FR-4 epoxy substrate
antenna has a bandwidth ratio of 26:1, but the antenna size with 1.6 mm thickness (h), relative permittivity (er) of 4.4 and loss
(130  120 mm2) is relatively large. Some two-port and four- tangent (tan d) of 0.02. The design parameters of the antenna ele-
port MIMO antennas with multiple band rejection characteristics ment are given in Table 1. Most of the commercially available RF
[22–26] were also designed, but they had a small bandwidth ratio
and separated ground planes. An eight-port UWB MIMO antenna
array comprised of 3-D non-planar geometry was also reported
[27], but it had a complex architecture with separated ground
planes and a small bandwidth ratio without any notch bands.
However, most of the SWB antennas presented in the literature
are microstrip line-fed fractal designs with large size and compli-
cated geometry. Also, the self-complementary MIMO antennas
reported in the available literature were designed mainly for
two-port UWB MIMO systems, without any notch bands.
In this paper, a CPW-fed compact quasi-elliptical-self-comple
mentary antenna (QESCA) for four-port MIMO systems is pre-
sented. Each MIMO antenna element consists of a quasi-elliptical
shape conductor patch and a slot, which is a complement of similar
shape, both present on the same side of the substrate. To improve
inter-element isolation between MIMO antenna ports, the four
radiating patches are arranged in an orthogonal manner. A tapered
feed line is used to match 50 X input impedance of the coaxial con-
nector. In order to have a common reference voltage within the
MIMO antenna system, the ground planes of all antenna elements
are connected together [28]. The antenna operates in the range of
1.25–40 GHz, possessing a bandwidth ratio of 32:1, with dual-band
elimination at 3.5 and 5.5 GHz to avoid interference of Wi-MAX
and WLAN signals, respectively. The inter-element isolation
obtained is more than 18 dB up to 15 GHz and exceeds 25 dB at
higher frequencies, without using any decoupling element. The
electromagnetic simulation tool Ansys HFSS is used to design the
MIMO antenna. In contrast to the previously reported designs,
the proposed antenna has substantial advantages in terms of radi-
ating elements, design complexity, bandwidth ratio and compact- Fig. 1. Schematic layout of the QESCA element (a) top view, (b) side view.
ness. The proposed CPW-fed self-complementary MIMO antenna
 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001 3

Table 1 line with appropriate widths (W1 and W2) at the opposite termi-
Design parameters of the proposed antenna. nals is designed for the purpose of impedance matching.
Dimension Value (mm) Dimension Value (mm) The design steps of the QESCA element are presented in Fig. 2.
A1 10 B1 9.45 The structure shown in Fig. 2(a) is an ordinary elliptical shaped
A2 10.2 B2 7.18 CPW-fed monopole antenna operational for UWB. In Fig. 2(b), a
Cx 3.22 Cy 13.33 semi-elliptical monopole antenna is obtained by cutting the ellip-
G1 0.5 G2 0.7 tical geometry of step-1. The comparison of reflection coefficients
Ly 9 Lx 5.5
R1 3 R2 2.5
of the antenna at corresponding design steps is presented in
W1 3 W2 0.77 Fig. 2(d). In the next step, the ground plane on the right-hand side
X1 9 X2 5 is extended to complement the truncated part of the monopole,
X3 12 X4 11.5 thus obtaining the self-complementary configuration as shown in
X5 11.7 X6 13
Fig. 2(c). The self-complementary geometry further increases the
X7 26 S1 1
Y1 10 Y2 8.5 impedance bandwidth of the antenna. This justifies the SWB beha-
Y3 9.58 Y4 9.75 viour of the self-complementary structure. Further, the CPW feed
Y5 31 Y6 3.7 line and ground plane of the antenna are modified to obtain the
Y7 20.8 Y8 7.2 proposed SWB antenna design shown in Fig. 1(a). In this design,
Y9 5 Y10 10
the main resonating element is a semi-elliptical patch with semi-
Y11 52 h 1.6
major and semi-minor axes as A1 and B1, respectively. The coplanar
ground patch supports a complementing slot of size A2 and B2. The
dimensions A1, B1, A2 and B2 are chosen for high eccentricity to
systems are equipped with standard front-end impedance of 50 O excite higher modes. Since the dimensions of the complementing
(balanced). But, the input impedance of QSCA is approximately slot (A2 and B2) are different from the dimensions of the main ellip-
188.5 O as shown in Eq. (1). Therefore, a proper impedance match- tical patch (A1 and B1), the geometry of the self-complementary
ing between the antenna and source is required, which plays an antenna is not perfectly elliptical and termed as quasi-elliptical.
important role in the antenna’s performance. A tapered CPW feed In a regular elliptical geometry, primarily, the dominant modes

Fig. 2. Design steps of the QESCA element (a) step-1, (b) step-2, (c) step-3, (d) reflection coefficients comparison.
4 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001

are excited. However, due to quasi-elliptical geometry with high The layout of the proposed SWB QESCA element with notch band
eccentricity, higher-order modes are generated and sustained. In slits is shown in Fig. 3(a). The simulated reflection coefficients
this way, SWB characteristics are obtained. and VSWR curves of designed QESCA with/without notch bands
are shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c), respectively. It is noticed that the
2.2. Single element SWB QESCA with notch bands antenna resonates in the range of 1.25–40 GHz with a bandwidth
ratio of 32:1 and by loading two resonator slits of suitable dimen-
In order to suppress the effect of licensed Wi-MAX and WLAN sions (for notching Wi-MAX and WLAN bands), the desired results
frequency bands from the SWB spectrum, the proposed elliptical are obtained.
antenna element is loaded with L- and C-shaped resonator slits. The L-shaped resonator eliminates 3.5 GHz (3.25–3.75 GHz)
band, whereas the C-shaped resonator notches 5.5 GHz (5.1–
5.85 GHz) band. As indicated by red arrows in Fig. 4(a) and (b),
the concentration of current is maximum around the peripheral
boundaries of L- and C-shaped resonators at 3.5 and 5.5 GHz,
respectively. The fields at these frequencies get nullified due to
the opposite directions of current vectors around corresponding
slits and accordingly band notch characteristics are obtained. A
close observation of Fig. 4(a) reveals that at 3.5 GHz, peripheral
boundaries of the L-shaped slit corresponds to a half-wavelength,
so, its slit length accommodates approximately a quarter-
wavelength. Similarly, at 5.5 GHz, Fig. 4(b) shows that both the
outer and inner boundaries of the C-shaped slit correspond to
two half-wavelengths. Accordingly, here, the average slit length
accommodates approximately a half-wavelength. Considering
these details, the respective slit lengths (L1 and L2) for L- and C-
shaped resonators are obtained as [20]


L1 ¼ Lx þ Ly þ G1  0:29kg ð2Þ

L2 ¼ fpðR1 þ R2 Þ  G2 g  0:52kg ð3Þ

1
kg ¼ c pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð4Þ
f r er;eff

er;eff ¼ ðer þ 1Þ=2 ð5Þ

where kg is the guided wavelength, c is the velocity of light in free

space, fr is the notch frequency, er and er,eff are the relative
permittivity and effective relative permittivity of the substrate,
respectively.
In order to optimize the band-notch behaviour, for effective
elimination of Wi-MAX and WLAN signals, iterative simulations
were carried out by varying lengths of the slits. The estimated
lengths of corresponding resonators are obtained from Eqs. (2)
and (3). At a time, only one resonator is loaded on to the QESCA
element for parametric optimization. Firstly, the L-shaped res-
onator for 3.5 GHz is optimized. The length Lx is fixed and Ly is var-
ied in 1 mm steps. Accordingly, the simulated reflection
coefficients are plotted in Fig. 5(a). Thereafter, only the C-shaped
resonator (for 5.5 GHz) is loaded on the QESCA element. The outer
radius R1 of the C-shaped resonator is varied in small steps of
0.2 mm and the width of the resonator is kept constant (R1–
R2 = 0.5 mm). The corresponding reflection coefficients are plotted
in Fig. 5(b). It is observed from Fig. 5 that small increments in the
effective length of the slot-resonators shift the notch band frequen-
cies towards the lower side.

2.3. Four-element SWB QESCA with notch bands

Since the environment around wireless radio terminals varies

dynamically, the multipath fading factors (like reflection, diffrac-
tion, scattering) prominently affect the UWB/SWB signals. To over-
come such problems, MIMO systems with two or more identical
antenna elements are used. The existence of numerous antenna
elements at the receiving terminal improves the link reliability of
Fig. 3. QESCA element (a) schematic layout with L- and C-shaped slits, (b) S11, (c) the receiving system, making communication link more robust
VSWR. and secure. Two or more antenna elements, with identical spectral
 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001 5

Fig. 4. Surface current distribution at (a) 3.5 GHz, (b) 5.5 GHz.

Higher mutual coupling and increased levels of ECC deteriorate

the overall performance of the system. Therefore, both these fac-
tors must be minimized, without compromising with the overall
size of the MIMO antenna. The design process for a two-port MIMO
antenna is relatively simple and straightforward because each
antenna element is mutually coupled only with one nearby ele-
ment. Whereas, in the case of four-port MIMO systems, each
antenna element is mutually coupled with the other three resonat-
ing elements. Subsequently, the adverse effects of mutual coupling
and ECC are substantially increased. Therefore, the designing and
optimization of four-port compact MIMO antenna become more
complicated than a two-port system.
The geometrical layout of the proposed four-port QESCA is illus-
trated in Fig. 6(a). In order to achieve better inter-element isolation
or to minimize mutual coupling, the four identical radiating ele-
ments of the MIMO antenna are packed orthogonally to each other.
The impedance bandwidth realized by each port (of four antenna
elements) is the same, but the orientation of radiating fields are
orthogonally aligned with reference to each other, thereby mini-
mizing the mutual coupling. The proposed MIMO QESCA prototype
photo is shown in Fig. 6(b) and the design parameters are listed in
Table 1. The total size of the proposed SWB QESCA is 52  52  1.
6 mm3.

3. Simulated and measured results

The photolithography and chemical etching methods are used

for fabricating the MIMO antenna. The antenna parameters were
measured using Agilent N5230 vector network analyser and Rhode
& Schwarz FSP spectrum analyser.
In Fig. 7, the reflection coefficient characteristics of the
proposed SWB MIMO antenna design can be observed. At all
four-ports, the antenna achieves an impedance bandwidth of
1.25–40 GHz, with dual band elimination at 3.5 GHz and 5.5 GHz
frequencies. The four-port QESCA provides a bandwidth ratio of
32:1. For distinct diversity performance, the isolation between
antenna ports must be very high, irrespective of the number of ele-
ments present in a practical MIMO system. The S-parameters
Fig. 5. Reflection coefficients variations for (a) Ly (b) R1.
obtained in Fig. 8(a) and (b) show that the simulated and measured
isolation amongst all four ports is better than 18 dB up to 15 GHz
characteristics and operating at the same resonant frequency and exceeds over 25 dB in the higher frequency range. Fig. 9 shows
bands are to be accommodated within a very limited space in por- the gain and efficiency curves of the QESCA. A sharp drop in
table MIMO transceivers. The scarcity of space to accommodate antenna gain and efficiency is noticed at the two notch bands.
more antenna elements within a portable system is a major con- While taking measurements at one antenna port, other unused
cern. As the distance between the two antenna elements is ports of the MIMO antenna are terminated with a matching load
reduced, the mutual coupling increases, simultaneously affecting of 50 X. Moreover, total efficiency due to inter-element coupling
the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC). can be evaluated by using the equation
6 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001

Fig. 8. S-parameters of four-port QESCA with reference to (a) port-1, (b) other ports.
Fig. 6. Four-port QESCA (a) geometrical layout, (b) photograph of the fabricated
prototype.

Fig. 9. Gain and efficiency of the QESCA.

significant (less than 3%). Fig. 10(a) and (b) gives a visual represen-
Fig. 7. Reflection coefficient characteristics of four-port QESCA. tation of the surface current distribution at 3.5 and 5.5 GHz (all
ports excited). At 3.5 GHz, the current concentration is maximum
    near the boundary of the L-shaped slit. Similarly, at 5.5 GHz, the
gt ¼ gr 1  Sji 2 ; i–j ð6Þ current is maximum around the periphery of the C-shaped slit.
Since the current flows in the opposite directions around the slits,
where gr is the radiation efficiency. The radiation loss in the it cancels out the radiating fields and thus, a dual band elimination
proposed MIMO antenna due to inter-element coupling is not is observed in the SWB.
 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001 7

Fig. 10. Surface current distribution at (a) 3.5 GHz, (b) 5.5 GHz.

For a four-port MIMO system, the ECC between antenna ele- Table 2
ments is calculated by far-field method using the relation [29] Performance parameters of four-port QESCA.

RR h ! ! i 2 Frequency (GHz) Isolation (dB) ECC ADG

 
 F 1 ðh; uÞ F 2 ðh; uÞ dX 7.5 >18 <0.02 10
qe1;2 ¼ RR   
RR  !  ð7Þ
 ! 2 2 15 >18 <0.01 9.98
 F 1 ðh; uÞ dX  F 2 ðh; uÞ dX 22.5 >23 <0.01 9.9
30 >27 <0.04 9.9
where F is the radiated field of two considered antenna elements 37.5 >32 <0.01 9.9
(1–2) out of four antennas, X, h and u are the solid, elevation and
azimuthal angle, respectively. The ECC and frequency variations
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
are plotted in Fig. 11. The ECC is shown for one pair of adjacent PN 2
i¼1 jbi j
and diagonal elements (1–2, 1–3 and 1–4) only, due to the rota- C ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
t
a PN ð8Þ
2
i¼1 jai j
tional symmetry of identical radiating elements. It is observed that
due to the orthogonal placement of the antenna elements, ECC val-
ues calculated are fairly low, throughout the entire operational
½b ¼ ½S½a ð9Þ
range. Also, the apparent diversity gain (ADG) of the antenna is
evaluated and found within the desired range [30], as can be seen 2 3 2 3
in Table 2. b1 S11  S1N
6 7 6 6 . .. 7
... 7
In MIMO antennas, the reflection coefficients at port-1 are influ- 4 b2 5 ¼ 4 .. . 5½a1 a2    aN  ð10Þ
enced by the neighbouring MIMO elements (other ports) due to
bN SN1    SNN
mutual coupling. So, the performance of a four-port MIMO antenna
is studied by simultaneously considering the total active reflection
where ½b is the resultant scattered vector, ½S is the scattering
coefficient (TARC). TARC indicates the ratio of the square root of aggre-
matrix of the MIMO antenna, ½a is the excitation signal matrix, ai
gate incident power (excluding the radiated power) to the square root
and bi represents the incident and reflected signals, respectively.
of total incident power applied at all ports of the MIMO antenna.
The TARC plot of the proposed MIMO antenna is presented in
Mathematically, the value of TARC at port-1 is obtained as [23]
Fig. 12. The TARC curves (A–D) obtained in Fig. 12 indicates the

Fig. 11. ECC of four-port QESCA. Fig. 12. Total active reflection coefficients of the QESCA.
8 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001

Fig. 13. Radiation patterns of the QESCA at (a) 7.5 GHz, (b) 12.5 GHz, (c) 17.5 GHz.

respective TARC at port-1, for various combinations of the phase dif- measured co- and cross-polar radiation patterns of the antenna at
ference of excitation signals applied at different ports. An excitation 7.5, 12.5 and 17.5 GHz are plotted in Fig. 13(a), (b) and (c),
signal a1 of unit magnitude ð1:ej0 Þ is applied at port-1, the other sig- respectively.
nals (a2, a3 and a4) are of the same magnitude and possess different In Table 3, the comparison of the proposed four-port QESCA
phases. In the TARC curve A, all the four antenna elements are excited with the antennas reported in the literature is presented. The
with a 0° phase difference. In TARC curve B, antenna element-2 is designed antenna has considerable advantages in terms of the
excited with 60°, element-3 with 120° and element-4 with 180° number of radiating elements, compactness, bandwidth ratio and
phase shifts. In TARC curve C, antenna element-2 is excited with isolation, in contrast to the antennas presented in [11–27]. The
180°, element-3 with 60° and element-4 with 120° phase shifts. In proposed antenna is CPW-fed, with antenna radiator and ground
TARC curve D, a phase shift of 90° is present between antenna plane present on the same side of the substrate. The CPW facili-
elements-2, -3 and -4, with respect to element-1. The TARC curves tates easy integration of matching networks or other high-
are found in agreement with the S-parameters. The simulated and frequency circuits. Further, rejection of extensively utilized WLAN
 D.K. Raheja et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 114 (2020) 153001 9

Table 3
Comparison of the proposed four-port QESCA with the reported designs.

Ref. NP AS (mm3) IBW (GHz) BW ratio Gain (Min./Max.) (dBi) NB NCF (GHz) ECC I (dB)
[11] 1 40  51.5  1.6 1.3–12 9.2:1 – – – – –
[12] 1 19  16  1.6 3–12 4:1 – – – – –
[13] 1 28.5  26  1.6 2.82–13.86 4.9:1 6/5 1 5.5 – –
[14] 1 20  20  1 1–30 30:1 2/5 – – – –
[15] 1 30  28  1.6 3.4–37.4 11:1 1.7/11 – – – –
[16] 1 18.5  20  1.6 3.8–68 17.9:1 1/13 – – – –
[17] 1 103.05  72.5  1.1 1.18–49.22 41.7:1 2/10.6 – – – –
[18] 2 21  38  1.6 3–12 4:1 1.3/4.2 – – <0.15 >15
[19] 2 41  30  1 2.19–11.07 5:1 2/6.5 – – <0.1 >20
[20] 2 66.8  40  0.8 2.6–13 5:1 1/5.7 2 3.5/5.5 <0.02 >15
[21] 2 130  120  0.787 1.04–27.2 26:1 – – – <10 dB >10
[22] 2 38.5  38.5  1.6 3.1–10.6 3.4:1 1/6 3 3.7/4.1/5.8 <0.047 >17
[23] 4 60  60  1.6 3–16.2 5.4:1 0.9/8.4 1 4.6 <0.3 >17.5
[24] 4 81  87  1.6 0.76–1.02, 3.01–12.5 4.2:1 3/8.4 2 4.8/7.7 <0.1 >20
[25] 4 100  100  1.6 2–15 7.5:1 – 2 3.5/5.5 <0.1 >20
[26] 4 39  39  1.6 2.3–13.75 6:1 4.75/4.6 3 3.5/5.5/7.5 <0.02 >22
[27] 8 70.87  70.87  25.6 2.5–12 4.8:1 – – – <0.4 >17
Pro. 4 52  52  1.6 1.25–40 32:1 4/4.5 2 3.5/5.5 <0.09 >18

NP: Number of ports, AS: Antenna size, IBW: Impedance bandwidth, NB: Number of notch bands, NCF: Notch centre frequency, I: Isolation.

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Declaration of Competing Interest
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