This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2018.2883428, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> Manuscript submitted to IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters < 1

Size Reduction of Self-Isolated MIMO Antenna

System for 5G Mobile Phone Applications
Anping Zhao, Senior Member, IEEE and Zhouyou Ren


also good antenna performance has been reported [23]. The
Abstract—An antenna element that has not only the self-isolated
unique feature of the self-isolated antenna element is that the
property but also compact size is proposed for the fifth generation
(5G) multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) system in mobile antenna element itself works as not only the antenna radiation
phone applications. In particular, the size reduction is done by element but also the isolation element. However, the size of the
introducing two vertical stubs into the original self-isolated antenna antenna element is quite big. For example, the length of the
element. It is demonstrated that very good isolation and antenna antenna element is 24.8mm (antenna height H = 6.2mm) for
efficiency for an 8-antenna MIMO system can be obtained without antenna working at the 3.5GHz (3.4-3.6GHz) band [23]. In this
using any additional isolation elements or decoupling techniques.
paper, it will be demonstrated that the antenna size can be
An antenna prototype is fabricated and measured; and quite good
agreement between simulation and measurement is obtained. reduced about 30% by adding two vertical stubs [24] in the
original self-isolated antenna element.
Index Terms—5G communication, MIMO antenna system,
mobile terminal, compact self-isolated antenna II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF THE COMPACT SELF-ISOLATED
ANTENNA SYSTEM
I. INTRODUCTION The compact self-isolated antenna element is shown in Fig. 1.

T HE fifth-generation (5G) communication technology can

provide many advantages such as higher transmission rate
and shorter latency over the current 4G system [1-2]. It has
This antenna contains a T-shaped feeding element, an inverted
U-shaped radiating element (grounded at its two ends), and two
additional vertical stubs. The antenna height and length are
been demonstrated [3-11] that to achieve higher transmission described by H and L, respectively; the height and length of the
rate for the 5G operation below 6GHz, the multiple-input and T-shaped element are depicted by h and t; and the location and
multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system with a relative large the length of the vertical stub are represented by p and q. When
number of antennas (e.g., 8-antenna or more) should be adopted. H and L are fixed, the antenna resonance frequency and the
Due to the limited space in mobile phones, however, how to impedance matching can be fine tuned by varying parameters h,
t, p and q. While the two vertical stubs are not adopted, the
achieve high isolation for such a big number of antennas
antenna resonance frequency is mainly determined by the total
becomes a critical challenge. Until now, some techniques that
length (L + 2H) of the antenna [23].
can be used to improve the isolation, such as the decoupling
Fig. 2 illustrates the current distributions of the compact
element [12], the orthogonal polarization [13], the defected self-isolated antenna and the traditional self-isolated antenna
ground structure [14-16], the neutralization line [17-19], and [23] at 3.5GHz. These two antennas are optimized or tuned to
the decoupling network [20-22] have been reported. However, have very similar antenna return loss, which can ensure a fair
most of them were developed for the system consisting of two comparison between them. To achieve the above performance,
antennas only, which normally cannot be applied to MIMO the values of L for the traditional antenna and the compact
antenna systems that have more than two antennas in a row, e.g., antenna are 25mm and 17.4mm, respectively, when H is fixed
the 5G 8-antenna MIMO application in mobile terminals. at 6mm. This means that compared to the traditional antenna
Among the 5G MIMO antenna designs in mobile terminals design, the antenna length L can be reduced about 30% when
[3-11], improvement on the antenna isolation was considered the compact antenna solution is adopted. The antenna size
by using the neutralization line [4], the dual-polarized antenna reduction with such a high percentage can be explained by
element [7], the two asymmetrically mirrored antennas [8], and studying the current distributions of these two antennas. As
the multimode decoupling technique [9]. However, good shown in Fig. 2, for both the antennas the currents at position O
isolation (around 20dB) within the entire band can be achieved
only with the multimode decoupling technique [9].
Nevertheless, due to the use of the isolation elements, the
antenna efficiency was reduced significantly [9].
Very recently, an antenna system based on the self-isolated
antenna element that can provide not only good isolation but

Manuscipt received October 8, 2018. Revised November 1, 2018.

Anping Zhao and Zhouyou Ren are with the Shenzhen Sunway
Communication Co., Ltd., Shenzhen 518502, China (email: anping.zhao@
sz-sunway.com; zhouyou.ren@sz-sunway.com). Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed compact self-isolated antenna element.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2018.2883428, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> Manuscript submitted to IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters < 2

(a)
Fig. 2. Current distributions of the two antenna configurations at 3.5GHz. The
top and bottom represent respectively the compact and traditional antennas.

are always zero as these two antennas are with symmetry and
work at their monopole-like mode. For the traditional antenna
the current path (of the left half) is just ABO; but there are two
current paths for the proposed compact antenna: ABCD and
ABCO. Unlike the current at position O, the current at position
D is not zero, and thus the contribution of the path ABCD is (b)
always bigger than that of the path ABCO. These two current Fig. 3. Perspective and side views of 8-antenna MIMO system. (a) perspective
paths make the effective length of the proposed antenna longer, view, and (b) side view. The width of all the antenna parts is 0.8mm.
which results in a very significant reduction in the antenna size.
It should be mentioned here that at the top center of the
inverted U-shaped element, a small gap (about 1-2mm) can also 8-antenna MIMO system has certain symmetry, only necessary
exist. In this case, the antenna becomes two identical F-shaped S-parameter will be considered.
elements. As explained in [23], the gap just gives us one more Fig. 4 plots S-parameter of the 8-antenna MIMO system with
freedom to fine tune the antenna system. The self-isolated d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm (i.e., uniformly distributed), while
property of the proposed antenna does not change whether the the parameters of the compact antenna element are optimized at:
small gap exists or not. The advantage of the proposed compact t = 5.0mm, h = 3.5mm, p = 3.5mm, and q = 4.7mm. One can see
self-isolated MIMO antenna system will be demonstrated next. from Fig. 4 that the curves of S11 and S22 do not changed much,
And, all the simulation results are obtained with CST [25]. which means that the proposed compact antenna works well in
the 3.5 GHz band while it moves from the location of Ant1 to
III. THE 8-ANTENNA MIMO SYSTEM BASED ON COMPACT the location of Ant2. Although the worse antenna isolation
SELF-ISOLATED ANTENNA ELEMENT appears in S32, it is still better than 19.6dB. This indicates that
very good isolation can be obtained with the proposed compact
The perspective and side views of the proposed 8-antenna antenna. The antenna efficiencies of Ant1 and Ant2 are plotted
MIMO system are shown in Fig. 3. The 8-antenna MIMO in Fig. 5. Both the antenna radiation and total efficiencies are
system is located along the two long edges of the mobile pretty good; and the antenna total efficiencies are always better
terminal. The dimension of the system substrate is 150mm than 60% within the 3.5GHz band. To the author’s best
75mm0.8mm. In addition, two clearance areas (75mm8mm) knowledge, without using any decoupling elements and/or
located separately at the top and bottom of the system substrate techniques, the antenna designs proposed in this paper and the
are reserved for the current 4G LTE antennas and other one developed in [23] are the only two approaches that can
antennas. The 8-antenna units are printed on two small achieve such good antenna isolation and antenna efficiency for
substrates that are placed perpendicularly to the system the 8-antenna MIMO system in mobile devices.
substrate; and each side has four antenna units. The dimension The current distributions of the MIMO system at 3.5GHz are
of the small substrate is 134mm6mm0.8mm. The system plotted in Fig. 6, in which Ant1 and Ant2 are excited separately.
substrate and the small substrate are all double-sided FR4 (with The radiation patterns of Ant1 and Ant2 are illustrated in Fig. 7,
r = 4.4 and loss tangent = 0.02). Each antenna is fed with a 50 and the maximum gains of different antennas point in different
Ω SMA connector through via-hole from the back side of the directions. Similar to the antenna system in [23], the current
system substrate. The edge-to-edge distances between Ant1 flowing along the antenna and the ground plane of the current
and Ant2, Ant2 and Ant3, Ant3 and Ant4 are described by d12, system is also confined to the area of the antenna that is excited,
d23, and d34, respectively; whereas the distances between the which also explains why the proposed compact MIMO antenna
feeds of the above antenna elements are described by D12, D23, system has very good isolation. Fig. 8 shows the calculated
and D34. And the relation between d and D is, e.g., D23 = d23 + envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of the proposed
L, while L is the length of the antenna unit. The four antennas is 8-antenna system. The ECC values are well below 0.0125
uniformly distributed along the small substrate while d12 = d23 within the 3.5GHz band, which are good enough for the 5G
= d34 = 20.8mm; and in this case D12 = D23 = D34 = 38.2mm. MIMO operation. The calculated channel capacity (CC) of the
For simplicity, the condition d12 = d34 (D12 = D34) is kept MIMO system obtained by averaging over 10,000 Rayleigh
while d23 (D23) varies; and the values of L and H are fixed at L fading realization with SNR = 20dB [4, 23] is plotted in Fig. 9.
= 17.4mm and H = 6.0mm throughout this study. Because the The CC value within the 3.5GHz band is better than 34bps/Hz,

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2018.2883428, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> Manuscript submitted to IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters < 3

antenna impedance matching can be optimized by the T-shaped

feeding element. The influence of the length (q) of the stub on
S11 and S21 is illustrated in Fig. 11. Although the length of the
stub has strong impact on the resonance frequency, the impact
on the impedance matching is quite weak. Similar phenomenon
is observed when the position (p) of the stub changes (not
shown). Also, the resonance frequency shifts lower when the
values of q and p get bigger. This is why the antenna size can be
reduced when the vertical stubs are adopted. Moreover, it can
be seen from Figs. 10 and 11 that the antenna isolations are not
varied much when parameters t and q are changed. This can be

Fig. 4. Simulated S-parameter of 8-antenna MIMO system while d12 = d23 =

d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 8. Simulated envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of 8-antenna MIMO

system with d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 5. Simulated antenna efficiencies of 8-antenna MIMO system while d12 =

d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 6. Simulated current distributions at 3.5GHz for 8-antenna MIMO system

while d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 9. Simulated channel capacity of 8-antenna MIMO system with d12 = d23
= d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 7. Simulated antenna radiation patterns at 3.5GHz for 8-antenna MIMO

system with d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

whereas for the ideal 88 MIMO antenna system it is about 44

bps/Hz.
To further demonstrate the working principle of the proposed
MIMO antenna system, some parameter studies are given next.
Fig. 10 shows how S11 and S21 of the MIMO system are affected
by parameter t: not only the antenna resonance frequency but Fig. 10. Simulated S-parameter of 8-antenna MIMO system varies as a function
also the impedance matching are affected. This means that the of t; while d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2018.2883428, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> Manuscript submitted to IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters < 4

Fig. 13. Photo of the fabricated antenna prototype of 8-antenna MIMO system
with d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 11. Simulated S-parameter of 8-antenna MIMO system varies as a function

of q; while d12 = d23 = d34 = 20.8mm.

Fig. 14. Simulated and measured S-parameter of 8-antenna MIMO system.

Fig. 12. Simulated S-parameter of 8-antenna MIMO system while d23 = 4mm
and d12 = d34 = 29.2mm for Ant2 is either with or without re-optimization.

seen as one of the advantages of the proposed antenna system.

Note that all the above studies are for the cases when the four
antennas are uniformly distributed along the small substrate.
However, the usefulness will be enhanced if these antennas can
be non-uniformly distributed. To demonstrate how the
proposed antenna system works for this case, as an example,
d23 = 4mm will be considered. The S-parameters of the
8-antenna MIMO system with d23 = 4mm shown in Fig. 12 are
Fig. 15. Simulated and measured antenna total efficiencies of 8-antenna MIMO
for two cases: with or without re-optimization. The
system.
re-optimization case means that the length (t) of the T-shaped
element of Ant2 (and its counterparts, Ant3, Ant6 and Ant7) is
IV. CONCLUSIONS
re-optimized from 5mm to 4.5mm while all the other optimized
parameters remain unchanged. As shown in Fig. 12, Ant2 can In this paper, an 8-antenna MIMO system is proposed for the
cover the 3.5GHz band very well when it is re-optimized, In 5G mobile applications. The MIMO antenna system is based on
addition, the re-optimization does not have negative impact on a compact antenna element that has the self-isolated property. It
isolations and almost no influence on S11. The above analysis was confirmed by both simulation and measurement that quite
reveals that the proposed 8-antenna MIMO system can be good antenna isolation can be achieved without using any
re-optimized easily when the locations of the antennas vary. additional isolation elements or decoupling techniques. Most
The 8-antenna MIMO system with uniform distribution was importantly, as the radiating element of the proposed antenna
fabricated and measured. The photo of the prototype is shown acts also as the decoupling element, the antenna total efficiency
in Fig. 13. The measured and simulated S-parameters are is not decreased. Because of the structure compactness and the
plotted in Fig. 14, and good agreement is obtained. The worse self-isolated property, the proposed MIMO antenna system will
measured isolation appears in S32 but it is still better than 19.1dB. be a very good choice for the 5G MIMO application in mobile
As shown in Fig. 15, the measured antenna total efficiencies also devices.
agree very well with the simulated results; and they are better
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2018.2883428, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> Manuscript submitted to IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters < 5

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