Design and Analysis of Modified U-Shaped Four Element MIMO Antenna for Dual-Band 5G Millimeter Wave Applications

A novel compact-slotted four element multiple input multiple output (MIMO) planar monopole antenna is proposed for 5G mmWave N257/N258 and N262 band applications. The antenna, with dimensions of 12 mm × 11.6 mm × 0.508 mm (1.036λo ×1.001λo×0.043λo where λo is computed at lowest cutoff frequency), is fabricated on a Rogers RT/duroid 5880 (tm) substrate with a relative permittivity of 2.2 and a dielectric loss tangent of 0.0009. The suggested antenna consists of four U-shaped radiating elements (patches) on top of the dielectric material and a slotted ground on the bottom. The radiating elements are fed by a 50-ohm microstrip line feed. To improve the impedance performance of the MIMO antenna, a rectangular strip of 1.3 mm × 0.2 mm and a couple of rectangular slots are added to each radiating element. The first operating band at 27.1 GHz, ranging from 25.9 GHz to 27.8 GHz, is achieved by using slotted U-shaped radiating elements. The second operating band at 48.7 GHz, ranging from 47.1 GHz to 49.9 GHz, is obtained by etching hexagonal slots on the ground. The antenna design achieves an isolation of >27 dB through the orthogonal positioning of radiating elements and slots on the ground. The designed antenna operates at 27 GHz (N257/N258) and 48.7 GHz (N262) bands, exhibiting stable radiation patterns, a peak gain of >5.95 dBi, radiation efficiency of >90%, an envelope correlation coefficient of <10-6, a total active reflection coefficient of ≤-10 dB, channel capacity losses of <0.03 bits/s/Hz, and a mean effective gain of ≤-3 dB. The simulated and measured results of the antenna show good agreement, making it well-suited for 5G mmWave communication applications.