Hybrid diversity for ECC enhancement of UWB MIMO antenna

In this paper, a hybrid diversity is employed to a UWB MIMO antenna to enhance its MIMO performance evaluated through envelope correlation coefficient (ECC). Polarization-diversity is achieved through vertical and horizontal orientation of elements of the MIMO antenna and evaluated through cross and co-polarized patterns at frequencies 4.5 GHz, 6.5 GHz, and 8.5 GHz. Space-diversity is achieved by, firstly, keeping elements λ
_max
/2 apart and, then, enhanced by reduced ground configuration resulting in mutual coupling reduction. The final design is fabricated and measured and proven to give minimum ECC over the entire UWB bandwidth.