On Multiport Antennas for MIMO-Systems

D. Heberling
Institute of High Frequency Technology RWTH Aachen University Aachen, Germany heberling@ihf.rwth-aachen.de
AbstractA very promising method to enlarge the radio channels capacity is the use of MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) systems. The need to deploy more than one antenna leads to the problem of the restricted available space reserved for the antennas, especially on the terminals. Another fundamental problem is the evaluation of the MIMO performance in a realistic propagation environment. Only a global view will bring up a realistic picture about the improvements using multiple antenna technologies. At the beginning of the presentation basics on MIMOtechnology will be given. The second part will show in a very fundamental way the realisation of a compact 4-port antenna, which provides a sufficient decoupling between the ports. Finally the system performance of this antenna is investigated. Based on the analysis of the diagram correlation coefficient and the mutual coupling of the elements a basic idea of the antenna performance is evaluated. Measured and simulated correlation coefficients of typical channel matrixes taking the antenna into account will give finally an idea of the real MIMO performance.

Ch. Oikonomopoulos-Zachos
IMST GmbH Kamp-Lintfort, Germany oikonomopoulos@imst.de the success of MIMO as a topic for new research. This has prompted progress in areas as diverse as channel modelling, information theory and coding, signal processing, antenna design and multiantenna-aware cellular design. On the other side only a global view bringing all aspects together will show the realistic improvement achieved using this multiple antenna technology. II. A CONCEPT FOR A COMPACT MULTIPORT ANTENNE The use of antennas of different polarizations or in general with low diagram correlation factors, provide same or better results compared to systems with equal polarized antennas [2]. Using several dipole antennas beside each other is already a standard concept to realize multiport antennas for MIMO systems. This can be applied when e.g. routers give enough space to achieve the necessary space separation. The limited space on todays mobiles ask for much more compact antenna concepts still providing a good decorrelation between the ports. A good overview on different concepts can be found in [3]. Hereafter we will develop a compact 4-port antenna. Goal of the development is to achieve an antenna structure with low reflection coefficient at all ports, high decoupling between the ports and most important to guarantee the decorrelation between the radiation patterns. A 2-port compact antenna concept comprising a decoupling is very simple. Using the two orthogonal modes of a patch antenna give a very good decoupling between the ports of the antenna. Due to the orthogonal polarisation an excellent decoupling of the radiation pattern can be expected as well. The extension to a 3-port antenna is quite obvious as well and shown in Figure 2. Using a quarter wavelength monopole at the centre of the monopole will add an orthogonal radiation pattern. While the basic radiation of the patches is normal to the substrate layer the monopole radiates omnidirectional into the plane of the substrate layer. A very good decorrelation of the radiation pattern can be expected.

I.

BASICS

MIMO systems can be defined simply. Given an arbitrary wireless communication system, we consider a link for which the transmitting end as well as the receiving end is equipped with multiple antenna elements. Such a setup is illustrated in Figure 1. The idea behind MIMO is that the signals on the transmit (TX) antennas at one end and the receive (RX) antennas at the other end are combined in such a way that the quality (bit-error rate or BER) or the data rate (bits/sec) of the communication for each MIMO user will be improved. Such an advantage can be used to increase both the networks quality of service and the operators revenues significantly.

Figure 1. Diagram of a MIMO wireless transmission system.

A key feature of MIMO systems is the ability to turn multipath propagation, traditionally a pitfall of wireless transmission, into a benefit for the user. MIMO effectively takes advantage of random fading [1] and when available, multipath delay spread for multiplying transfer rates. The prospect of many orders of magnitude improvement in wireless communication performance at no cost of extra spectrum (only hardware and complexity are added) is largely responsible for

Figure 2. 3-port antenna design

How can we add another antenna port giving another uncorrelated radiation? While the two patch modes give orthogonal polarisation for the radiation normal to the substrate plane, the monopole has a -polarisation and an omnidirectional pattern in the plane of the substrate layer. The possibility left is generating a - polarisation with the same radiation pattern as the monopole has. This radiation pattern is given by a magnetic dipole with the same orientation as the electric monopole has. The magnetic dipole realization is shown in Figure 3. and Figure 4. It consists of two vertically positioned strip lines, which are driven out to reach the four arcs on the upper side of the magnetic dipole. One side of these lines is connected to the ground. The other side is connected to the unsymmetrical feeding structure of the bottom layer (Figure 3. right). The electrical length between these two perpendicular lines must be 180. This is necessary in order to share the same power amount, in an odd mode, at the arcs of the magnetic dipole. The magnetic dipole has a distance of approximately /4 from the patch antenna surface. A realization is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Realized 4-port antenna

III.

MIMO SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

A measure of the MIMO system performance is the radiation pattern correlation coefficient [4] as the performance of MIMO is based on the decoupling between the elements of the channel matrix. It can be shown that the diagram correlation factor can be expressed based on the scattering parameters also for multiport antennas [5]. Results of the decorrelation for measured and simulated radiation pattern are given in the following TABLE I. Clearly the uncorrelated radiation pattern properties can be observed as all correlation factors ij are below 0.2. ij simulated ij measured

top layer

bottom layer

Figure 3. Layout of the patch antenna and feeding structure of the 4-port antenna. TABLE I.

21= 0.060 31= 0.131 41= 0.033 32= 0.128 42= 0.079 43= 0.084

21= 0.135 31= 0.029 41= 0.053 32= 0.076 42= 0.158 43= 0.082

RADIATION PATTERN CORRELATION FACTOR

Figure 4. Geometry of the 4-port antenna incl. the magnetic dipole

But is decorrelation the final goal? Lets have a look on the correlation behaviour using this antenna in a typical indoor scenario as given in Figure 6. Position S1 and S4 are for transmit and E1 and E6 for receive respectively. The link S4 E6 comprise a line-of-sight scenario (LOS), the link S1 E1 a non-line-of-sight scenario (NLOS). For transmit the 2-port patch antenna is used, for receive the 4-port antenna as described above. Now a correlation coefficient can be calculated between all channels of all ports of the antennas. The result is given in Figure 7. for S1 E1 and in Figure 8. for S4 E6. Each square represents a correlation between a channel given on the right side and a channel given on the top. A blue colour represents decorrelation, red colour strong correlation. As expected only a wear decorrelation can be observed for the line-of-sight scenario no. But even for the non-line-of-sight scenario the correlation is above 0.5 for nearly 30% of the channel combinations and is above 0.3 for about 80% of the channel combinations. This has to be taken into account when calculating realistic expectations for MIMO improvements.

IV.

CONCLUSION

In this paper a concept for a multiport antenna has been described. After an introduction into basics of the MIMO technology a combination of a 2-port patch antenna and a monopole was used to realize a compact 3-port concept. Using a magnetic dipole as a forth antenna allows the extension of this concept to a 4-port solution. Using simulated as well as measured data of the complex radiation patterns of each antenna element, the radiation pattern correlation factor was determined. With values lower than 0.2 in all cases makes the presented 4-port antenna a very strong candidate in future MIMO systems.
Figure 6. A typical indoor scenario for MIMO tests

REFERENCES
[1] G.J. Foschini, M.J. Gans. On limits of wireless Communications in a fading environment when using multiple antennas, Wireless Personal Communications, 1998. W. Keusgen. On limits of wireless communications when using multiple dual-polarized antennas, 10th International Conference on Telecommunications, 2003. C. Luxey, Design of Multi-Antenna Systems for UMTS Mobile Phones, Loughborough Antennas & Propagation Conference, 2009 R.G. Vaughan and J. Bach-Andersen, Antenna diversity in mobile communications, IEEE Transactions on vehicular technology, Vol 36, November B. Rembold, Relation between diagram correlation factors and Sparameters of multiport antenna with arbitrary feeding network, Electronics letters, Vol. 44, pp. 57, Jan. 2008.

[2]

[3] [4]

[5]

Figure 7. Correlation for S1 E1 (NLOS)

Figure 8. Correlation for S4 E6 (LOS)