Wideband 5G MIMO Antenna With Integrated Orthogonal-Mode Dual-Antenna Pairs for Metal-Rimmed Smartphones

This article presents a wideband orthogonal-mode dual-antenna pair with a shared radiator for fifth-generation (5G) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) metal-rimmed smartphones. The wideband decoupling property of the dual-antenna pair is realized by the combination of the orthogonal monopole/dipole modes in the lower band and the orthogonal slot/open-slot modes in the higher band. With the orthogonal-mode design scheme, the dual-antenna pair shows a wide impedance bandwidth of 3.3-5.0 GHz and a high isolation of more than 21.0 dB across the entire band without using any external decoupling structures. By arranging four such dual-antenna pairs at two side edges of the smartphone, an 8 × 8 MIMO system is fulfilled. Both the simulation and measurement results show that the proposed 8 × 8 MIMO system could offer an isolation of better than 12.0 dB and an envelope correlation coefficient of lower than 0.11 between all ports. The measured average antenna efficiencies are 74.7% and 57.8% for the two antenna elements of the dual-antenna pair. We portend that the proposed design scheme, with merits of shared radiator, wide bandwidth, and metal rim compatibility, has the potential for the application of future 5G smartphones.