Compact dual-printed inverted-F antenna diversity systems for portable wireless devices

Dual-printed inverted-F antenna diversity systems for terminal devices operating at 5.2 GHz under both switched and combining schemes are presented. Diversity performance is evaluated by means of the calculated envelope correlation coefficient, the mean effective gain and the effective diversity gain of the two antennas. An investigation into the effect of the antennas' placement and of the corrugated ground plane on the performance of the system has also been conducted. It is shown that many configurations can provide uncorrelated signals of the same power level, but with significantly different radiation pattern complementarity, antenna efficiency, and effective diversity gain.