Fig. 7. Simulated E-field distributions inside the DRAs of (a) Antenna H RII, in
which the via position is changed and (b) Antenna HRIII, in which the via
number is changed.
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured normalized 2-D patterns of the H-plane
decoupled prototype at 26 GHz. (a) Port 1. (b) Port 2.
Fig. 12. Simulated and measured boresight gains of the H-plane decoupled
prototype.
A. Antenna Configuration
Fig. 13 shows the configuration of the proposed via-loaded
E-plane decoupled MIMO antenna. Again, two identical rec-
tangular DRAs are placed along the x -axis, separated by Fig. 15. Simulated S-parameters of the reference Antenna E RI, the proposed
a distance s. Different from the above-mentioned case, the Antenna EP, as well as the single DRA.
coupling slots are now assigned with the y-axis, and the 50 K
microstrip lines are curved into L-shape to feed the slots.
any decoupling structure and the proposed Antenna E P which
Therefore, the TE111(y) mode is excited and the xz plane
has extra metallic vias, as shown in Fig. 14. Both sets of
becomes the E-plane. To reduce the E-plane coupling between
MIMO antennas are operating in the TE111(y) mode and are
the two neighboring DRAs, four vias that are symmetrical
designed at 26 GHz. Fig. 15 shows the simulated S-parameters
about both the x- and y-axes are inserted into each DRA
of the two MIMO antennas. It can be seen that Antenna
element.
ERI has a − 10 dB impedance bandwidth of 7.3% and an
isolation of about 13 dB, similar to the above-mentioned H-
B. Antenna Mechanism plane coupled antenna. When adding the metallic vias,
A comparison is also conducted between a reference
antenna (Antenna ERI) which is the dual-coupled DRA
without
2230 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
Fig. 16. Simulated E-field distributions inside the DRAs of (a) reference Antenna ERI without via, (b) proposed Antenna EP with 4 vias, and (c) reference
Antenna ERII with 2 vias.
Fig. 17. Simulated 2-D radiation patterns of the E-plane coupled MIMO can only be enhanced limitedly by about 8 dB, not as well as
antennas with (proposed Antenna EP) and without (reference Antenna ERI)
metallic vias, as well as the single DRA at 26 GHz. (a) xz plane. (b) yz plane. the proposed scheme.
Fig. 17 plots the simulated radiation patterns of the sin- gle
DRA, the reference Antenna E RI, and the proposed Antenna EP.
Again, it can be clearly seen that the xz plane pattern of
the impedance bandwidth slightly increases to 9.2%, ranging Antenna ERI is seriously deformed by the coupling
from 24.8 to 27.2 GHz. Simultaneously, the mutual coupling
decreases greatly to less than −30 dB. The effectiveness of
the decoupling vias is thus validated again.
The field distributions of the MIMO antennas with and
without metallic vias are investigated and shown in Fig. 16.
It can be seen in Fig. 16(a) that when there is no decoupling
structure, a large amount of fields can be coupled from DRA-
1 to DRA-2, and considerable x -polarized field can be
observed in DRA-2, indicating that the isolation is poor. When
adding decoupling vias in the two DRAs, it can be observed in
Fig. 16(b) that the fields within DRA-1 remain almost
unchanged, but the fields coupled to DRA-2 become rather
weak. The field and current concentrate around the vias,
while the current on the microstrip feedline-2 is very weak. As
a result, the isolation is improved significantly, as
demonstrated in Fig. 15. The two-vias scheme used in the
above-mentioned H-plane case has also been investigated. As
shown in Fig. 16(c), when only two vias are used, the fields on
the left half of DRA-2 are similar to that of the proposed
antenna, but the fields on the right half are now mainly along
the x -direction. Consequently, the isolation of Antenna E RII
PAN et al.: SIMPLE DECOUPLING METHOD FOR 5G mm-WAVE MIMO DRAs 2231
Fig. 20. Prototype of the proposed via-loaded E-plane decoupled MIMO IV. COMPARISON AND D ISCUSSION
antenna. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view.
The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of the proposed
MIMO antennas has been calculated by:
The antenna performance of all the above-mentioned Σ (θ,φ) .
. · (θ, φ)Σ dK 2
∫∫ − −
2 →
→
E
E
.
. (θ, 2
φ) dK . (1)
.
E-plane
for coupled MIMO antennas is summarized in Table II
reference. ρe = 4π
(θ,
φ) 1 2 .
∫∫ . ∫∫ −
− dK
→
→
E
E
4π . 1 . 4π . 2 .
C. Experimental Verification It is found that the ECC values of both the proposed via-
A prototype of the proposed via-loaded E-plane decoupled loaded MIMO antennas HP and EP are below 0.002 over the
MIMO antenna was also fabricated and measured to verify the fre- quency band of interest, which are much lower than that
effectiveness of the decoupling method, as shown in Fig. 20. of the reference antennas without metallic vias. Hence, a
Similar to the H-plane prototype presented in Section II, good spatial multiplexing performance can be expected by
the ground plane has been enlarged to 31.77 × 39 mm 2 for using the decoupling method.
installing the End-Launch-Connectors and reducing the impact A comprehensive comparison between the proposed via-
of the connectors. Fig. 21 shows the simulated and measured loaded decoupled MIMO DRAs and the previously reported
S-parameters of the prototype. It can be seen that the designs is summarized in Table III. As shown in Table
− than
measured reflection coefficients of both ports are better III, the decoupling effects of all the previous ele- ments
10 dB within the band of 25–27 GHz. The measured isolation including the metasurface shield [20], metamaterial
is
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
22
TABLE III
COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED VIA-LOADED DECOUPLED MIMO ANTENNA AND PREVIOUSLY REPORTED DESIGNS
Fig. 23. Simulated and measured boresight gains of the E-plane decoupled
prototype.
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Yong Mei Pan (M’11–SM’17) was born in Huang- University of Science and Technology of China,
shan, Anhui, China. She received the B.Sc. and Hefei, China, in 2004 and 2009, respectively.
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the From 2009 to 2012, she was a Research Fellow
with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
22
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. In 2013,
she joined the School of Electronic and Information Yu Xiang Sun was born in Yingcheng, Hubei,
Engineering, South China University of Technology, China, in 1987. He received the B.Eng. degree in
Guangzhou, China, as an Associate Professor, where electronic information science and technology and
she is currently a Professor. Her current research interests include dielectric the M.Sc. degree in radio physics from Wuhan
resonator antennas, leaky-wave antennas, metasurface antennas, and filtering University, Wuhan, China, in 2010 and 2012, respec-
antennas. tively, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering
Dr. Pan is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON from the City University of Hong Kong, Hong
ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION. Kong, in 2016.
From 2012 to 2013, he was a Research Assistant
with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City
University of Hong Kong, where he has been a
Post-Doctoral Fellow since 2016. His current research interests include
dielectric resonator antennas, GPS antennas, and millimeter-wave antennas.
Dr. Sun serves as a Technical Reviewer for the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON
A NTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, IEEE A NTENNAS AND W IRELESS PROPA -
GATION L ETTERS , Sensors, and IET Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation.