IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
15, 2016
Compact Dual-Polarized UWB
Quasi-Self-Complementary MIMO/Diversity
Antenna With Band-Rejection Capability
Jianfeng Zhu, Student Member, IEEE, Shufang Li, Senior Member, IEEE, Botao Feng, Member, IEEE,
Li Deng, and Sixing Yin, Member, IEEE
AbstractA novel compact ultrawideband (UWB) multiple-
inputmultiple-output (MIMO) antenna system with dual polar-
ization and band-rejection capabilities is proposed. The proposed
MIMO antenna system consists of two quasi-self-complementary
(QSC) antenna elements. The elements are arranged orthogonally
and fed perpendicularly to obtain polarization diversity. High
isolation can be achieved without additional decoupling struc-
ture owing to the inherent advantage of the self-complementary
structure. Notched band at WLAN system can be realized by
etching a bent slit in each of the radiating elements. Moreover,
a four-element MIMO system is also proposed and investigated
to fully reveal its potential use. Diversity performance in terms
of envelope correlation coefcient (ECC) and the mean effective
gain (MEG) ratio are studied. Measured results show that the
proposed antenna has a wide bandwidth ranging from 3 to 12 GHz
with band rejection at WLAN system and high port isolation
( dB at most of the band), which demonstrate the pro-
posed MIMO/diversity antenna system can be a good candidate
for UWB applications.
Index TermsBand rejection, dual polarization, mul-
tiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO), quasi-self-complementary
antenna (QSCA), ultrawideband (UWB).
I. INTRODUCTION
M ULTIPLE-INPUTMULTIPLE-OUTPUT (MIMO)
technology has been widely used in the wireless
communications in recent years because of its outstanding
performance. By taking advantage of the rich scattering envi-
ronment, the capacity and the reliability of the data transmission
can be enhanced without consuming additional power and
bandwidth. When MIMO antenna system is applied in portable
devices, compact size and wide bandwidth are required. Most
importantly, high isolation between antenna elements in a
conned space is also necessary since the mutual coupling will
affect the correlation as well as the antenna efciency.
Meanwhile, since the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) allocates 3.110.6 GHz for unlicensed commercial use,
ultrawideband (UWB) technology has become a hot research
Manuscript received August 03, 2015; accepted September 01, 2015. Date of
publication September 17, 2015; date of current version March 23, 2016. This
work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grant No. 61139001.
The authors are with the Beijing Key Laboratory of Network System Archi-
tecture and Convergence, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
Beijing 100876, China (e-mail: zhujianfeng@bupt.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/LAWP.2015.2479622
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.
905
area in the past decade for its high data rates and huge data trans-
mission in a wide frequency range. As the fundamental compo-
nents of UWB communications, various UWB antennas have
been reported and investigated by researchers. Among them,
self-complementary antenna has been proposed as an ideal can-
didate for UWB design due to its prominent advantages such
as wide bandwidth and compact size [1]. However, the UWB
system usually suffers from multipath fading and limited data
transmission distance. To combat multipath fading and enhance
the volume and distance of the data transmitted, the combina-
tion of the MIMO/diversity antenna and UWB technology can
be a promising research area.
Hitherto, various kinds of MIMO/diversity UWB antennas
have been discussed. To the MIMO antenna system, one of
the main concerns is to reduce mutual coupling. In [2], a tree-
like structure was employed to enhance wideband isolation. By
etching T-shaped slot in the ground [3], inserting parasitic stubs
between antenna elements [4], or arranging antenna elements
orthogonally [5], high isolation can be achieved. On the other
hand, in order to obtain efcient UWB antenna, a ltering tech-
nique that helps to reject the narrowband system such as WLAN
should be necessary in the UWB antenna design. In this sense,
an excellent UWB MIMO antenna should not only own high
isolation characteristics but also possess anti-interference capa-
bility with other narrowband systems [6].
In this letter, a novel dual-polarized UWB quasi-self-com-
plementary (QSC) MIMO/diversity antenna with band-notched
capability is proposed. To the best of our knowledge, it is the
rst type of UWB MIMO antenna using quasi-self-complemen-
tary structure that simultaneously possesses anti-interference
and polarization diversity characteristics. High isolation can
be achieved without additional decoupling technique owing to
the inherent advantage of the self-complementary structure. By
placing antenna elements orthogonally and fed perpendicularly,
dual polarization is obtained. This design can further reduce
mutual coupling as well as enhance reliability of the MIMO
system. Notched band can be realized by etching bent slit in
the radiating elements. Furthermore, the four-element UWB
MIMO antenna system is also proposed and investigated to
fully reveal the potential application of the selected MIMO
antenna system.
II. TWO-ELEMENT UWB QSC MIMO ANTENNA DESIGN
A. UWB MIMO Antenna Design
Fig. 1 shows the geometry and prototype of the proposed
two-element QSC UWB MIMO antenna, with dimensions given
906 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 15, 2016

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed two-element diversity antenna system.

TABLE I
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA

in Table I. The antenna is fabricated on FR4 substrate with a

dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 1 mm. The total
size of the MIMO system is mm . Each of the Fig. 2. Current distributions (a), (c), (e) without bent slit and (b), (d), (f) with
bent slit at 4, 5.8, and 9 GHz. (a) 4 GHz. (b) 4 GHz with bent slit. (c) 5.8 GHz.
UWB monopoles consists of a half fan-shaped patch and a com- (d) 5.8 GHz with bent slit. (e) 9 GHz. (f) 9 GHz with bent slit.
plementary cut ground plane. To the quasi-self-complementary
element, the input impedance is generally constant regardless
of the frequency variation. Therefore, a wideband impedance
matching can be achieved easily. Furthermore, in the MIMO/di-
versity antenna system, the main concern is to obtain high iso-
lation between radiating elements. Beneting from the comple-
mentary structure, high edge isolation can be achieved without
complex decoupling structures. Fig. 2(a), (c), and (e) shows the
surface current distributions of the diversity antenna (without
notch) at the frequency of 4, 5.8, and 9 GHz, respectively. It is
seen that the currents were more concentrated around the edges
of the patch and the cut ground plane since both the patch and Fig. 3. Simulated and measured -parameters of the proposed two-element
its complementary ground plane are the parts of the antenna. MIMO antenna.
Moreover, the arrowhead-shaped protruded ground also helps
to further enhance port isolation. Simulated and measured -pa- antenna design. In the proposed QSC diversity antenna, a bent
rameters are depicted in Fig. 3. It can be seen that isolation is slit was etched in each of the radiating elements to achieve band
signicantly improved at lower frequencies from 2 to 4.8 GHz rejection. To illustrate the mechanism of the notched band,
by using the arrowhead-shaped stub. Thus, good edge isolation current distributions on the QSC MIMO antenna system and the
is obtained over the whole operating frequency band due to the band-notched QSC MIMO antenna system at the frequencies
inherent advantages of the self-complementary antenna and the of 4, 5.8, and 9 GHz are presented in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2(b) and (f),
protruded ground structure. the currents mainly ow around the lower edges of the patch
and the cut ground plane. Meanwhile in Fig. 2(d), the currents
B. Achieve of Band-Rejection Capability concentrate alongside the bent slit, which interferes with the
To avoid interference with other narrowband systems, radiation efciency, causing the antenna system to become
for example, Dedicated Short-Range Communication nonresponsive at the notched frequency.
system (5.8505.925 GHz) and WLAN system operating in Figs. 4 and 5 show the effects of the determining parame-
5.155.825 GHz, a ltering technique is needed in the UWB ters variation on the notched frequency. It can be seen that the
ZHU et al.: COMPACT DUAL POLARIZED UWB QSC MIMO/DIVERSITY ANTENNA WITH BAND-REJECTION CAPABILITY 907

Fig. 4. Simulated VSWR versus frequency for different of the UWB MIMO
antenna with mm and mm .

Fig. 6. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the proposed two-element

antenna system with Port 1 excited at 4 GHz: (a) H-plane and (b) E-plane, and
8 GHz: (c) H-plane and (d) E-plane.

Fig. 5. Simulated VSWR versus frequency for different of the

UWB MIMO antenna with mm and mm.

notched frequency decreases as the length of the slit increases.

It is also worth noting that the distance between the slit and the
upper edge of the radiating patch ( ) has a major inuence on the
notched frequency bandwidth. To obtain efcient band-notched
UWB antenna, it is wise to govern the width of the notched fre-
quency band. By adjusting the length of properly, the UWB
antenna can reject the WLAN band more precisely.
To further guide the notched band design of the proposed Fig. 7. Geometry of the proposed four-element diversity antenna system.
QSC MIMO antenna system, a semi-empirical equation is given
based on numerous simulated results [7]
(1)
where is the speed of light and refers to the center
notched frequency.

C. -Parameters and Radiation Patterns

As a note, the numerical simulation is implemented by using
HFSS. Simulated and measured -parameters are shown in
Fig. 3. It can be seen that the band covers from 2 to 12 GHz
with dB and dB (at most of the band),
and port isolation at lower frequencies is still very high. The
radiation patterns of the proposed two-element antenna system
with Port 1 excited are shown in Fig. 6.

III. FOUR-ELEMENT UWB QSC MIMO ANTENNA DESIGN

It is well known that the channel capacity and reliability of the
wireless communication system can be enhanced by increasing
the antenna element. Fig. 7 shows the geometry of the pro-
posed four-element UWB MIMO system. The dimension of the
system is mm . The system is fabricated symmetri- Fig. 8. Measured -parameters of the proposed four-element MIMO antenna.
cally by two diagonal lines, and the antenna elements are placed (a) and . (b) and .
perpendicularly to reduce mutual coupling. Fig. 8 shows the
measured -parameters of the proposed four-element MIMO with 50- loads. It can be seen that the antenna exhibits wide
antenna. When measured, the unemployed ports are terminated impedance matching from 3 to 12 GHz with dB.
908
Fig. 9. 3-D radiation patterns of the four-element antenna at 4 GHz with
(a) Port 1 excited, (b) Port 2 excited, (c) Port 3 excited, and (d) Port 4 excited.
Fig. 10. Measured ECC of the proposed four-element MIMO antenna.
Moreover, high isolation is easily achieved due to the comple-
mentary structure and perpendicular feeding structure.
The 3-D radiation patterns of the four-element MIMO an-
tenna system with different ports excited are shown in Fig. 9.
The antenna radiates in negative -axis, negative -axis, -axis,
and -axis when Port 1, Port 2, Port 3, and Port 4 are excited,
respectively, which illustrates the pattern diversity performance
of the four-element UWB MIMO antenna.
A. Diversity Performance
The envelope correlation coefcient (ECC) is a crucial pa-
rameter to evaluate the diversity performance in MIMO an-
tenna system. By assigning average cross-polarization ratio as
1 and assuming uniform angular density functions, ECC values
of two antennas in terms of radiation patterns can be calculated
as follows [8]:
(2)
Fig. 10 shows the ECC of the proposed four-element MIMO an-
tenna. The ECC is below 0.5, which indicates that the proposed
antenna can provide good pattern diversity.
The mean effective gain (MEG) ratio is another important
parameter to evaluate the diversity performance, which is
dened as the ratio of the mean receive power to the mean
incident power. The ratios of the mean effective gain should
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 15, 2016
Fig. 11. Simulated MEG of the proposed four-element diversity antenna
system.
satisfy the following criteria in order to guarantee a good
channel characteristics [9]:
(3)
The simulated MEG of the proposed four-element diversity an-
tenna system is shown in Fig. 11. The MEG of the four antenna
elements are nearly identical over the whole UWB band, which
suggests a good channel performance.
IV. CONCLUSION
A compact QSC UWB MIMO/diversity antenna system is
proposed. By employing self-complementary structure and ar-
ranging radiating elements perpendicularly, good isolation is
achieved without involving complex decoupling structure. In
addition, band rejection at WLAN system is achieved by etching
a bent slit in each of the radiating element. With these merits,
the proposed MIMO antenna system can be a good candidate
for UWB applications.
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