ABSTRACT

This topic presents the design of 8 x 8 MIMO antennas for future 5G

devices such as smart watches and dongles etc. Each antenna of the
MIMO configuration occupies 3 x 4 mm2 and is printed on the top layer
of the substrate in the form of a rotated H-shaped patch. The substrate
used for the design is a31.2 x 31.2 x 1.57 mm3, Rogers RT-5880 board,
with dielectric constant of 2.2. The top layer of the substrate has eight
MIMO antennas whereas, the bottom layer is composed of ground plane.
The ground plane is an Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) based structure
designed for the enhancement of gain and efficiency. Each antenna is fed
from the bottom layer of the substrate through vias to avoid any spurious
radiation. The MIMO antennas resonate at 25.2 GHz with a 6 dB
percentage bandwidth of 15.6%. The gain attained by the antennas in the
entire bandwidth is above 7.2 dB with maximum value of 8.732 dB at the
resonant frequency. Likewise, the value of efficiency attained by the
antennas in the entire bandwidth is above 65% with maximum of 92.7%
at the resonant frequency. The simulation and measurement results have
substantiated a good performance of the MIMO antennas, thus making
them suitable for compact 5G devices.

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I. INTRODUCTION

With an increase in the number of users the frequency allocation is

getting deficient due to limited channel bandwidth. Within in the same
frequency bandwidth the number of users cannot exceed a specified
limit. Also, the co-channel interference increases with an increase in
number of users. After the evolution of high definition (HD) and
quadruple high definition (QHD) video resolutions, it becomes quite
difficult for the handheld devices to send or receive large volume videos
on the 3G and 4G frequency channels. It thus becomes a necessity to
have a wider bandwidth and a faster data rate for rapid transmission and
reception of high quality multimedia wirelessly from one terminal to the
other. To cater for this problem, 5G frequencies are under research due
to their wider bandwidth.

5G offers greater bandwidth with more number of frequency channels as

compared to 3G and 4G thus making it suitable for increased number of
users who demand fast data rate on the go. Besides its impressive
features, 5G frequencies face a potential problem related to the low
penetration power due to which the signal fades and gets weaker while
reaching from transmitter to receiver using one antenna at each end. In
order to enhance the range of the transmitted signal, Multiple Input
Multiple Output (MIMO) and/or array antennas can be a better solution
especially when dealing with compact battery powered devices. Few
designs of compact 5G antennas have been presented in.

It has been observed from the review that the antennas presented are
mostly single antennas and few array antennas as it is very difficult to
achieve high gain using a single antenna. The array antennas, however,
being fed through single port have the same capacity performance as that
of single antennas. Due to this reason, the frequency channel is busy most
of the time thus reducing data transfer rate. Also, the proposed antennas
possess poor bandwidth thus limiting the number of frequency channels.
Another issue associated with the 5G designs, presented in the literature,
is that the antennas are mostly not in MIMO configuration which makes
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them un-suitable for devices demanding a high data rate and throughput
performance. An H-shaped antenna is presented by Wong et.al for
WLAN frequencies. The design covers dual band. However, it is not
MIMO antenna, thus not suitable for high date rate smart devices. It is
therefore a strong need to develop the MIMO antennas for 5G devices so
that a higher data rate and a wider bandwidth can be made possible.

In this paper we present a printed MIMO antenna system for future smart
5G devices such as smart watches and dongles etc. The design presents
eight similar antennas etched on the front of a Rogers RT-5880 substrate
board. Each antenna of the MIMO system is a rotated H-shaped patch
and covers a wide bandwidth for future 5G communication. The
geometry of the proposed 5G MIMO antennas and their simulation and
measurement results will be discussed in the upcoming sections.

Few designs of compact 5G antennas have been presented in It has been

observed from the review that the antennas presented are mostly single
antennas and few array antennas as it is very difficult to achieve high
gain using a single antenna. The array antennas, however, being fed
through single port have the same capacity performance as that of single
antennas. Due to this reason, the frequency channel is busy most of the
time thus reducing data transfer rate.

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 ANTENNA DESIGN
The MIMO antennas are modelled and simulated in CST Microwave
Studio®, as presented in figure 1, whereas, the fabricated prototype is
presented in figure 2.

FIGURE 1. Simulated model of the 5G MIMO Antennas.

(Front View: Top Layer; Back View: Bottom Layer)

It can be seen from figure 1 that the design is comprised of eight H-

shaped MIMO antennas printed on the top layer of Rogers RT-5880
board whereas, the bottom layer is composed of an EBG based ground
plane which consists of slots each having a width of 0.2 mm. Each
antenna has a microstrip feed line that is fed from the back through via
hole to minimize spurious radiations. The RF coaxial connectors used
in the fabricated prototype are 2.92 mm type female connectors. The
simulations have been carried out at the Research Institute for
Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Studies (RIMMS), National
University of Science and Technology (NUST), Pakistan, whereas, the
testing of the antennas is performed in the antenna laboratory at Beijing
University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China. The
proposed design is composed of four antennas at the corner and four at
the center. The results of one of the corner antennas and one of the center

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antennas are presented for the ease of analysis. The results of only
antenna # 1 and antenna # 5 are presented as the other antennas are
similar to these. It can be anticipated that few discrepancies may incur
between the simulation and measurement results mainly due to
soldering of RF connectors which extend outside ground boundary.

FIGURE 2. Fabricated Prototype of the 5G MIMO Antennas.

The detailed dimensions of the antennas and the ground plane are
shown in figure 3. It can be seen that the size of the substrate used for
the design is 31.2 x 31.2 x 1.57 mm3 which fits well within the housing
of smart device as smart watch or internet dongle. The geometry of each
antenna resembles a rotated H-shaped patch, which along with its feed
line occupies a space of 3 x 4 mm2 which makes it suitable small
handheld future 5G devices. The via-holes drilled for the purpose of
feeding have a diameter of 0.5 mm. The horizontal edge-to-edge
spacing between the antennas is 11.1 mm which is approximately 0.93λ
at 25 GHz. Likewise, the vertical edge-to-edge spacing is 10.1 mm
which is approximately 0.84λ at 25 GHz. The dimensions of the
antennas and the ground plane are optimized to achieve better s-
parameter and radiation performances. The simulations have shown

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that the H-shaped patch gives a wider 6 dB bandwidth as compared to
a rectangular patch.

FIGURE 3. Detailed dimensions of the proposed MIMO

antennas for smart 5G devices.

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 Radiation Pattern:

The simulated and measured radiation patterns of the 5G MIMO

antennas at 25 GHz are shown in figure 7. The radiation patterns of only
Antenna # 1 and Antenna # 5 are shown as other antennas are identical
to these and are symmetrically placed. It can be seen that the antennas
demonstrate an approximately directional radiation pattern. A
discrepancy has been observed between simulation and measurement
patterns which may have incurred due to soldering of SMA connectors
as the housing of the connectors extends outside ground boundary. This
might have been avoided if pig-tail connectors were used.

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FIGURE 7. Radiation patterns of the MIMO antennas for
smart 5G devices. (a): Polar Patterns for Antenna # 1 (b):
Polar Patterns for Antenna # 5.

 Gains & Efficiencies:

The gains and efficiencies of the MIMO antennas at different frequencies

are shown in table I. Gain is computed by the ‘Gain comparison method’
using standard gain Horn antenna , whereas, for the measurement of
efficiency ‘Wheeler Cap method’ is used Some discrepancies have been
observed between the simulated and the measured values which are
mainly due to the imperfections in the fabrication of the antenna
especially the flange connectors which extend outside ground boundary.
The average difference between the simulated and measured gain of
Antenna # 1 is 1.41 dB whereas, that for efficiency is 14.2 %. Similarly,
the average difference between the simulated and measured gain of
Antenna # 5 is 1.05 dB whereas, that for efficiency is 12.9 %.

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 TABLE I
GAINS AND EFFICIENCIES OF MIMO ANTENNAS
FOR 5G DEVICES
Gain (dB) Efficiency (%)

Frequency Simulated Measured Simulated Measured

Ant.1/Ant.5 Ant.1/Ant.5 Ant.1/Ant.5 Ant.1/Ant.5

23 GHz 7.21 6.45 5.85 5.45 65.4 74.6 51.3 61.3

24 GHz 7.86 7.44 6.41 6.24 78.9 85.1 65.8 72.3

25 GHz 8.73 7.43 7.17 6.41 92.7 89.9 78.3 77.1

26 GHz 8.22 6.74 6.77 5.63 85.7 79.4 71.9 65.2

27 GHz 7.22 6.52 5.97 5.38 72.5 68.4 57.1 56.7

 Performance Comparison:

The gain and efficiency performance of the MIMO antennas is better

than most of the 8-Element MIMO antennas in the literature. Also, the
design covers a smaller area than most of the designs which makes it
distinctive and more suitable for small wearable and portable devices.
Moreover, the MIMO configuration with eight rotated H-shaped patch
antennas is rare and will give a better capacity and throughput
performance than the other 2-element and 4- element MIMO antennas
in the literature. A comparison with other 5G designs from the literature,
, is illustrated in table II. It can be seen that the proposed antenna gives
a

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 TABLE II
A COMPARISON WITH THE LITERATURE
DESIGNS

Published Work From No. of Bandwidth Average Gain

Literature Ports (GHz) (dB)

Mahmoud et. al. [31] 04 0.53 8 dB

Yevhen et. al [32] 01 0.60 6 dB

Ming et. al. [33] 12 0.20 3.5 dB

Wei et. al. [34] 01 2.20 2.2 dB
Proposed Design 08 5.68 6.4 dB

MIMO PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

The key parameters that have been studied for analyzing the MIMO
performance of the proposed antennas include envelope correlation
coefficient (ECC), mean effective gain (MEG) and effective diversity
gain (EDG). Each parameter will be discussed in this section.

 Envelope correction coefficient (ECC):

The ECC curves between different MIMO pairs are shown in figure 8.
The ECC values have been approximated using the S-parameters
method. It can be seen from the curves that in the bandwidth of 23 – 27
GHz, the relatively larger values of correlation coefficients exist between
antenna 1 & antenna 5, antenna 1 & antenna 7 and antenna 6 & antenna
7. The peak value of correlation coefficient is 0.03 which is much
smaller than the practically acceptable value. From figure 5, it is obvious
that the measured SXY is better than simulated SXY which means that
the measured correlation coefficients will be better than the simulation
ones.

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 Mean Effective Gain (MEG):

The simulated and measured values of mean effective gain of the

proposed 5G MIMO antennas are calculated using the efficiency
method , and are shown in Table III-IV. It can be seen that the
antennas possess good values of MEG which happened primarily due
to a better isolation between MIMO antennas. Also, the ratios of MEG
of different elements are approximately equal to 1 which validate a
good diversity performance of the MIMO antennas. The measured
mean effective gains are slightly smaller than the simulated ones. This
is primarily due to substrate tolerances, fabrication and testing
imperfections.

TABLE III
SIMULATED MEAN EFFECTIVE GAINS (MEG) OF THE 5G
ANTENNAS

Freq. MEG (-dB) of Antenna Element No.

(GHz)
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8

23 4.85 4.78 4.75 4.81 4.28 4.29 4.28 4.28

24 4.04 4.12 4.17 4.19 3.71 3.76 3.73 3.74

25 3.34 3.37 3.36 3.39 3.47 3.42 3.41 3.39
26 3.68 3.73 3.67 3.68 4.01 3.97 4.03 4.02
27 4.41 4.46 4.44 4.42 4.65 4.64 4.63 4.62

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 TABLE IV
MEASURED MEAN EFFECTIVE GAINS (MEG) OF THE 5G
ANTENNAS

Freq. MEG (-dB) of Antenna Element No.

(GHz)
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8

23 5.91 5.86 5.93 5.81 5.13 5.07 5.10 5.03

24 4.83 4.79 4.86 4.74 4.42 4.36 4.25 4.39

25 4.07 4.00 4.13 3.99 4.41 4.38 4.29 4.40

26 4.44 4.36 4.49 4.35 4.86 4.79 4.72 4.80

27 5.44 5.31 5.51 5.36 5.47 5.33 5.41 5.39

 Effective Diversity Gain (EDG):

The effective diversity gain of the proposed 5G MIMO antennas is
calculated using the method presented in The diversity gain thus
calculated ranges from 13.05 dB to 18.54 dB with an average value of
15.8 dB. The 5G antennas present a good diversity performance
however, at the corner frequencies, the diversity performance is
relatively poor which primarily happened due to lower efficiency
values. This can be improved by employing efficiency enhancement
techniques. For the calculation of the EDG, average value of
correlation coefficients from figure 8 are used to analyze an average
diversity performance.

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 Advantages of MIMO antenna

Establishing better coverage between 5G devices and MIMO antennas

involves optimizing the signal propagation and reception conditions to
ensure reliable communication over larger distances and through various
obstacles. Here are some strategies to achieve better coverage:

Optimal Antenna Placement: Properly position MIMO antennas to

maximize signal coverage. Consider factors like antenna height,
orientation, and placement to minimize obstructions and maximize line-
of-sight paths.

Diversity Techniques: Combine MIMO technology with other diversity

techniques like space, time, and frequency diversity to mitigate the effects
of fading and interference, particularly in challenging environments.

Higher Frequencies: While higher frequency bands, like mmWave, offer

higher data rates, they also have shorter range due to higher attenuation.
However, utilizing beamforming and small cell deployments can help
extend coverage in these bands.

Small Cell Deployment: Deploy small cells in areas with high user
density or poor coverage. Small cells are lower-power base stations that
can be strategically placed to fill coverage gaps and enhance overall
network capacity.

Coverage Prediction and Planning Tools: Use specialized software to

model and predict signal propagation in various environments. This helps
in identifying potential coverage gaps and planning for optimal antenna
placement.

Smart Antenna Systems: Employ smart antenna systems that

dynamically adapt their radiation patterns based on the location of user
devices. This enhances coverage and minimizes dead zones.

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Disadvantages of MMO antenna

 Massive MIMO units are several times expensive compare to

traditional radio units.
 Massive MIMO antenna designs are more complex and
requires more effort and time during assembly line compare to
traditional antenna designs.
 Use of FDD in massive MIMO leads to feedback overhead.
This overhead increases with increase in antenna elements.
Hence TDD is used due to its channel reciprocity concept.
 Spacing between antennas is very less and hence requires
packing of entire hardware into smaller space. For example,
32T32R requires 64 RF paths with spacing between antennas
is approx. 4.2 cm at given frequency of about 3.5 GHz.
 Due to more RF paths and antennas lot of power is dissipate.
This requires inevitable temperature requirements.
 Massive MIMO requires complex signal processing algorithms
at the receiver to address inter user interference.
 The resource requirements and hardware complexity is higher
compare to single antenna antenna based system. Each
antenna requires individual RF units for radio signal
processing. Moreover advanced DSP chip is needed to run
advanced mathematical signal processing algorithms.
 The hardware resources increase power requirements. Battery
gets drain faster due to processing of complex and
computationally intensive signal processing algorithms. This
reduces battery lifetime of MIMO based devices.

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CONCLUSION

A design of 8 x 8 MIMO antennas was presented for 5G

communication. The antennas demonstrated a compact geometry and a
wide bandwidth of 4 GHz ranging from 23.1
– 27.2 GHz. There has been observed a good agreement between the
simulation and the measurement results. The design presented in this
paper displayed good return loss and radiation performances thus
making it suitable for future 5G devices such as smart watches and
dongles etc. Reduction in the size of the substrate, improvements in the
fabrication of the antennas and measurements with new dimensions,
will be a part of immediate future work.

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