Compact MIMO/diversity antenna for portable and mobile UWB terminals

A novel MIMO/diversity Planar Inverted-F antenna (PI FA) is presented for UWB applications. This antenna assembly is formed by two identical PIFAs, a T-shaped decoupling structure which connects the two PIFAs and a finite ground plane. The compact envelope dimension of this antenna is 50 × 90 × 7.5 mm
³
. Theoretical and experimental characteristics are illustrated for this antenna that fully covers an operating frequency band of 3.1 – 10.6 GHz for UWB applications, at a reflection coefficient and mutual coupling better than −10 dB and −20 dB respectively. An acceptable agreement is also obtained between computed and measured radiation patterns and gains. These characteristics demonstrate that the proposed antenna is an attractive candidate to provide pattern diversity in enhancing the channel capacity while operating in a rich scattering environment.