Active integrated microstrip MIMO antenna for gain enhancement

This paper discusses an active integrated microstrip antenna with multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) 2×2 element design. The active component as power amplifier is integrated with the rectangular patch antenna for gain enhancement at port 2 and port 4. The feeding technique used is aperture coupled to easily integrate the passive antenna with the power amplifier. Simulation result shows that the passive antenna excites gain of 2.5 dB at frequency 2.35 GHz, while with the addition of power amplifier is 16.15 dB. Therefore a gain enhancement of 13.65 dB is achieved. The measured gain of the active integrated antenna at port 2 is 11.6 dB while at port 4 is 11.4 dB. Moreover, measurement result shows impedance bandwidth of 190 MHz at port 2 while 200 MHz at port 4.