Eight-Port MIMO Antenna for Integrated Narrowband / Ultra-wideband (UWB) Applications

In this paper, an eight-element MIMO antenna having inter-leaved architecture of four ultra-wideband (UWB) and four narrow-band (NB) elements is presented for integrated UWB (3.1-10.6 GHz) / upper WLAN (5.8 GHz) applications. The UWB elements are based on quasi-self complementary (QSC) elements placed at the substrate corners. The NB operation is achieved by use of microstrip-fed fractal slot-loops, which are located in between the UWB elements. Ansys HFSS simulations as well as measurements on the fabricated MIMO antenna prototype verify the design procedure. The proposed eight-port integrated UWB / NB MIMO antenna exploits spatial/pattern / polarization diversity and can be useful for simultaneous long-range / short-range high data-rate communication systems, as well as spectrum sharing cognitive radio applications.