Exploring Pattern and Polarization Diversity: A quintuple port MIMO Dielectric Resonator Antenna

In this paper, a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with five ports, designed for WLAN applications with a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) configuration. The antenna setup involves two cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas (cDRAs) placed on opposite sides of an L-shaped substrate. Each cDRA is driven by a pair of microstrip line-fed conformal striplines, oriented orthogonally to ensure excitation of the $HE_{11\delta}$ mode in the respective cDRA. Careful arrangement of the feeding mechanisms induces specific polarizations in the antenna elements, significantly enhancing isolation between the ports. These two cDRAs operate in disparate directions, thereby originating two distinct and spatially uncorrelated radiation patterns. Additionally, the proposed technique introduces another level of complexity by exciting a $TM_{01\delta}$ mode within a ring DRA positioned at the substrate’s corner. This ingenious approach results in the creation of a third radiation beam. The synergistic implementation of these techniques contributes to an impressive isolation of over 16 dB among the ports. Furthermore, the antenna configuration provides a bandwidth of 12.17%, spanning from 5.4 to 6.10 GHz. The presented findings suggest that this novel MIMO antenna design could be favorably deployed in WLAN applications operating around 5.8 GHz.