Impact of Matching Network on Bandwidth of Compact Antenna Arrays

We analyze the impact of the matching network on compact multiple-input multiple-output systems. Existing studies have found that the matching network has a significant influence on the performance of multiple antenna systems when the antennas are in close proximity. However, none has examined the wide-band case. In this paper, we investigate the wide-band performance of four different matching networks for multiple dipole antennas. The performance of the matching networks is given in terms of the bandwidths of correlation and matching efficiency, which are extensions of the single-antenna concept of bandwidth to multiple antenna systems. We also investigate the impact of the propagation conditions on the matching and bandwidth. For a uniform two-dimensional (2-D) angular power spectrum, we find that while individual-port matching can achieve in excess of 3% fractional correlation bandwidth for envelope correlation of 0.5 at an antenna separation of 0.01lambda, multiport matching is required for efficiency bandwidth to exist for a return loss of -6 dB. Moreover, even with multiport matching, both correlation and efficiency bandwidths decrease drastically at small antenna separations. At 0.01lambda, the correlation and efficiency bandwidths are 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively. Similar evaluations were performed for measured outdoor-to-indoor channels with moderate to small 2-D angular spreads. We find that the efficiency advantage of multiport matching over individual-port matching diminishes with decreasing angular spread