Design of a Compact MIMO Antenna for LTE Application

The long Term Evolution (LTE) is the current-generation mobile communication standard providing high data rate. As a key component of the LTE wireless system, the multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) antenna has attracted significant research power in the recent years for its well-known advantages of increasing transmission capacity and reducing multipath fading. A MIMO antenna consists of at least two radiating elements placed at certain distance to have high isolation between them, but the available space is very limited in the modern portable wireless front-ends. Various techniques have been proposed to improve isolation in MIMO antenna for LTE application. Mutual coupling between the perpendicularly placed antennas can be reduced by using narrow stubs in the ground plane and slots in the radiating elements. The designed antenna has simple structure and compact size of 50 X 20 mm2. High isolation between the MIMO elements is achieved by introducing a dual linear stub in the ground plane of the MIMO antenna which has mutual coupling less than -20 dB. The designed antenna is analysed using full-wave electromagnetic software HFSS.