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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

A Novel MIMO Patch Antenna for 5G Applications

Arwa Abdulkareem1, Malik Jasim Farhan*1

1
Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Mustansiriyah University,
Baghdad-Iraq

[email protected]

Abstract. In this paper, a new MIMO patch antenna is proposed, the proposed antenna consist
of patch with certain dimensions in the top layer of FR-4 dielectric substrate, and ground plane
in the bottom of it, this antenna is feeding by microstrip feed line with 50-ohm characteristic
impedance. The dimensions of the proposed antenna are (50 × 50 × 1.6) mm3, the FR-4 epoxy
substrate has relative dielectric constant 𝜀𝑟=4.3, loss tangent tan (δ) =0.025. This antenna is
realized a bandwidth of 4.337 GHz (24.22 – 28.557) GHZ and gain (3.68) dBi which is
compatible with 5G applications. Some modifications were done in the ground plane and some
of slots are etched on the patch to achieve the desired gain and bandwidth, all dimensions of
these slots were chosen by using sweep parameter method to achieve the optimum value of
them. The simulation results are obtained using CST software. And the proposed antenna is
manufactured in the Electronic Manufacturing Center at the Ministry of Science and
Technology, also the vital parameters are measured, a good agreement between simulation and
measured results are achieved.

1. Introduction
The exponential increase in wireless data rate (up to 5,000 times by 2030[1]) and its unusual growth
has led to efforts and development of 5G architecture requirements that are expected to include data
rate increases over 4G systems[2] Which may reach 10 G bps plus reduce the latency to less than 1
ms, The high density of the network will transform the structure of the traditional network from a
group of large cells covering large areas to a large number of small cells that provide higher capacity
and better services to users and reduce transmission power as the transition to millimeter waves is
another modern through which to benefit from High bandwidth and very high data rates but these high
frequencies will impose conditions on this system due to signal blocking and attenuation. Therefore,
multiple antennas such as MIMO antenna become a necessity in communication standards as they
enable the transmitted signal parameters Adaptable to address the effects of the wave’s millimeter[3].
5G (5th generation) is a modern wireless technology expected to be deployed by 2020, a key element
of 5G technology is the MIMO antenna system to achieve 10-100 times of bandwidth compared to 4G
and LTE communication systems[4].
In addition to the MIMO antenna, other techniques that reduce interference are multicell
processing[5], and interference alignment[6].Using these techniques (multicell processing and
interference alignment) the cell size is reduced by fixing fimto cells or small cells[7] but this will
increase the cost of additional equipment in addition to increasing interference, therefore, the most

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

appropriate option is to use MIMO technology this technique is also known as Full Dimension MIMO,
Hyper MIMO, and ARGOS.
Multiple antennas are used for transmitting and receiving to achieve their desired objectives of
increasing data rate and bandwidth and mitigating multipath effects[8].
On the other hand, the antenna used to increase the capacity of the MIMO channel is a microstrip
antenna[9] which has several advantages including low profile, low weight, conformal to the surface
of objects and easy production. A large number of microstrip patches to be used in wireless
applications have been developed; various shapes such as square, rectangle, ring, disc, triangle,
elliptic, pentagonal[10].
The proposed antenna is MIMO array printed patch antenna of dimensions (50×50×1.6) mm3, all
antennas are printed on the front surface of FR-4 dielectric substrate (relative permittivity 4.3and loss
tangent 0.025.) and the ground plane is printed on the back surface of FR-4 dielectric substrate, the
geometry of radiator is rhombus but by using parametric study it has unequal length. a 50 Ω microstrip
feed line is connected at the lower edges of each radiators, to improve the isolation by making all ports
orthogonal in 90 degrees, the proposed MIMO antenna was designed and simulated using CST Studio
Suite.

2. MIMO theory
MIMO technology is a technology based on the presence of multiple antennas in the transmitter and
receiver sides to send and receive many data simultaneously as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. MIMO- multiple input multiple output.

With MIMO technology, many benefits will be available[11]:

1- Increase the data rate because using multiple antennas enables the transmission of many data
simultaneously and thus processing more than one user.
2- Enhanced Reliability because there were many antennas, there were many independent paths
through which the radio signal could propagate.
3- Improve energy efficiency as the base station concentrates its emitted energy in the direction
specified where the terminals is located
4- Reduced interference because the base station can purposely avoid transmitting into directions
where spreading interference would be harmful.
Channel capacity can be expressed in accordance with Shannon's law

C B log 1 (1)

The bandwidth is directly proportional to the channel capacity so it is the key factor in achieving the
maximum required data rate, SNR is the determining factor for the quality of the transmission, i.e. the

2
ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

speed of data transfer in the cell, Thus, MIMO systems can increase channel capacity without having
to increase bandwidth[12].
MIMO capacity increases linearly by increasing the number of antennas while Single-Input Single-
Output (SISO), Single-Input Multiple-Output (SIMO) and Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO)
systems all increase only logarithmically[13].
A single path is providing between each pair of transmitter and receiver, these pair send the same
information in different paths, that's mean a multiple independent replicas of data can be achieved at
the receiver side, that give more reliable communication[14].

3. Antenna Design
The microstrip patch antenna is a single layer design which consists generally of four parts (patch,
ground plane, substrate, and the feeding part)[15], the patch is a very thin radiating metal strip (or
array of strips) which are placed on one side of the insulating substrate, the metallic patch is normally
made of thin copper foil. The ground plane is the same metal located on the other side of the
substrate, the substrate is used for the spacing between the patch and the ground plane, the front and
back view of proposed antenna are shown in Figure 2, the FR-4 is chosen to the substrate of proposed
antenna with height of 1.6 mm, 4.3 dielectric constant and 0.025 tangent loss, The CST microwave
studio tool was used.
A metal patch of different length and width (to achieve matching) was connected to 50Ω feed line.
With dimensions of feed line were Li=8 mm and Wi =4 mm, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Single antenna (a) front view (b) back view

4. Simulation Result
The most important parameter to be considered is the maximum transfer of power (matching of the
feed line with the input impedance of the antenna) , Where S11 represent the amount of energy sent to
the amount of energy reflected Therefore, a graph of S11 of an antenna versus frequency is called its
input reflection coefficient curve as shown in Figure 3, Gain of an antenna is defined as its ability to
concentrate the radiated power in a given direction or conversely to absorb effectively the incident
power from that direction (which is around (2.31 dbi) for single patch antenna).

3
ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

Figure 3. Simulated S11 of the single patch antenna resonating at 26GHZ

Radiation pattern is one of the important parameters which is distinguishes each antenna from another.
From simulated result it is obvious that the proposed antenna array has omnidirectional patterns and
dips, and it’s acceptable throughout the operating bandwidth. As shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Single patch antenna radiation pattern at 26 GHz, φ=90º

The Figure below show that gain characteristic for single patch antenna

Figure 5. Gain of single element antenna

Since the array method improves the behavior of the microstrip patch antenna, it will increase the
array elements to four to demonstrate how much the excess number of elements will enhance the

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

resulting antenna's performance, it is important to be compliant for the next generation of mobile
communication (5G) in the proposed design of 4 elements. The proposed antenna consists of four
microstrip antennas, as shown in the Figure 6 front and back view, the table (1) shows the geometric
dimensions for the suggested antenna and as shown in Figure7.
In the proposed MIMO antenna, four antennas are rotated to reduce the distance and maintain the
small size of the antenna ,the increase in the number of antennas resulting from an increase in gain and
bandwidth, the distance between each antenna is 5 mm according to (𝜆 2)to reduce the interference
and fading effect.

(a) (b)
Figure 6. Proposed four array element (a): front view (b): back view

Table 1. Proposed dimension for MIMO array antenna

Parameter Value in (mm) Parameter Value in(mm) Parameter Value in (mm)
L 50 W 50 H 1.6
Lg 12 Wg 17 Wf 4
Lf 8 Ws 3 Ls 4
Xfp 19 Yfp 18 Yg 3

Figures 7. The proposed antenna (a) single (b) MIMO array

Whereas, Figure 8 shows the target bandwidth required in 5G applications

5
ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

Figure 8. Simulated S11 of the MIMO array patch antenna resonating at 26GHz

Figure 9. MIMO array antenna radiation pattern at φ=90º

Figure10. 3D radiation pattern for proposed MIMO array antenna.

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

From the results of simulation, the gain of proposed antenna with four elements increased by 1.37 dBi
as compared with the single element antenna, where the reference antenna resonates at 26 GHz and its
gain is 2.31 dBi, it is clear that the gain is enhanced to 3.68 dBi at the same frequency.
The performance of the antenna is influenced by several factors, including the geometry of the antenna
and electrical parameters, the most important, dimensions of the antenna and the dimensions of the
slots in each of the ground plan and patch plan.
The parameter optimized for the desired band is y3, which represents the length of copper found on
the ground as shown in Figure 11 a, b. it will get the band shown in the Figure 12.

Figure 11. Ground before and after optimized.

Figure 12. Simulated s-parameter of the patch antenna with different values of y3

In the Figure above, the value of the y3 parameter has been changed for several values to obtain the
target bandwidth required for 5G applications. Initially the value of the parameter y3 = 16, but after
adjustments using the sweep parameter it is found that the best value is 20 mm because the other
values don’t satisfy the desired bandwidth.
The other improved parameter is y10 which represents the patch with feeder connection point as
shown in Figure 13,the band obtained from changing this parameter is shown in the Figure 14,
Therefore the best value obtained is when y10 = 18 mm i.e. when obtaining the largest possible
matching.

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

(a) (b)
Figure 13. The location of the patch connection to the feed line (a) y10=18 (b) y10=25

Figure 14. Simulated s-parameter of the patch antenna with different values of y10

As for the length of the substrate is simulated at two different length 25 mm and 17 mm but there was
little improvement in the s-parameter and the best value was chosen as shown in Figure 15a, b.

(a) -25 mm (b)-17 mm

Figure 15. Simulated s-parameter of patch antenna for different length of substrate

Therefore, the optimum parameters used to design the antenna are shown in Table 2 below:

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

Table 2. Optimal design parameters of patch antenna

Parameter Value in mm Parameter Value in mm

L 25 W 25

Y3 20 Y10 18

he main purpose is to increase the band so that it suits the frequencies of the fifth generation and also
increase user capacity.
The Co-reflection Coefficients (S41, S42, S43, S31, S32, S34, S21, S23, S24, S12, S13, S14) ≤−20dB
and that represent amount of isolation between each ports and must be greater than or equal to -20 dB
In order to prevent that each port affects the other as shown in Figure 16.

Figure 16. The co-reflection coefficient of MIMO Array Antenna

The gain from the single antenna is around (2.31) dBi and MIMO array antenna is (3.68) dBi, the
proposed antenna is manufactured as shown in Figure 7a,b and the results of the practically
manufactured antenna are shown in Figure 18, the sensible reflection coefficient versus frequency is
20GHz, due to the reality that there is no vector network analyzer extra than 20 GHz on hand in the
lab, a slight difference in process results and simulation has been found, due to the feeder soldering as
well as the connections of the vector network analyzer.

(a) (b)
Figure 17. The practical proposed MIMO array antenna (a) front view (b) back view

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

Figure 18. Compression S11 simulation and practical

The group time delay of the proposed antenna is evaluated and it has approaches to zero for the
required band (24.25 – 27.5) GHZ as shown in Figure below.

Figure 19. The group time delay of the proposed MIMO array antenna

The values of the real part of the impedance in the ideal antenna should be 50Ω and the imaginary part
must be zero to get the best matching, The real part of the manufacturing antenna is around (62.1Ω)
and imaginary part is around (5.6Ω) These are acceptable values and are close to ideal state as shown
in Figures. 20 and 21 respectively.

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ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

Figure 20. The real impedance for MIMO array

Figure 21. The imaginary impedance for MIMO array

When designing MIMO antennas the main parameter is envelope correlation coefficient (ECC),
recognize the correlation between every two ports MIMO antennas should have low ECC to indicate
that channels are independent, The value ECC should be very low and it varies from 0 to 1[16] , as
shown in Figure 22 for the manufacturing antenna.

Figure 22. The envelope correlation coefficient for MIMO array antenna

5. Conclusion
A new design of MIMo patch antenna was proposed to be used in 5G applications, the dimensions of
this antenna are (50 × 50 × 1.6) mm3, the substrate material which is used is FR4 with 𝜀𝑟=4.3, loss
tangent tan (δ) =0.025, the proposed antenna is achieved a good bandwidth of 4.337 GHz and gain of
3.68 dBi, and these results are compatible with 5G requirements. Some slots are etched in patch to
satisfy these requirements, also the ground plane is modified for the same goal. The designed antenna
is manufactured in the Electronic Manufacturing Center at the Ministry of Science and Technology,

11
ICEAT 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 870 (2020) 012040 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/870/1/012040

Baghdad, Iraq. the manufactured antenna shows a good agreement between measured and simulation
results.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Mustansiriyah university (www.uomustansiriyah.edu.iq) Baghdad -
Iraq for its support in the present work.

6. References
[1] 2015 5G Vision. (USA: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.)
[2] 2014 Evolutionary & disruptive visions towards ultra-high capacity networks. In: IWPC
International Wireless Industry Consortium, (USA
[3] Misilmani H M E and El-Hajj A M 2017 Massive MIMO Design for 5G Networks: An
Overview on Alternative Antenna Configurations and Channel Model Challenges. In: 2017
International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS), pp 288-94
[4] Tong W and Peiying Z 2016 Huawei - 5G: A Technology Vision Huawei Technical
Publications
[5] Gesbert D, Hanly S, Huang H, Shitz S S, Simeone O and Yu W 2010 Multi-Cell MIMO
Cooperative Networks: A New Look at Interference IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications 28 1380-408
[6] Maddah-Ali M A, Motahari A S and Khandani A K 2008 Communication Over MIMO X
Channels: Interference Alignment, Decomposition, and Performance Analysis IEEE
Transactions on Information Theory 54 3457-70
[7] Hoydis J, Kobayashi M and Debbah M 2011 Green Small-Cell Networks IEEE Vehicular
Technology Magazine 6 37-43
[8] Saad A A R and Mohamed H A 2019 Printed millimeter-wave MIMO-based slot antenna
arrays for 5G networks AEU - International Journal of Electronics and Communications 99
59-69
[9] Rao A, Ankaiah N and Cheruku D 2016 Antenna Performance Improvement in Elliptical
Array Using RMI Method of Mutual Coupling Compensation Journal of Electromagnetic
Analysis and Applications 08 8-21
[10] Sabri H and Atlasbaf Z 2008 Two Novel Compact Triple Band Microstrip AnnularRing Slot
Antenna for PCS- 1900 and WLAN Applications 5 87-98
[11] Larsson E G, Edfors O, Tufvesson F and Marzetta T L 2014 Massive MIMO for next
generation wireless systems IEEE Communications Magazine 52 186-95
[12] Foschini G J and Gans M J 1998 On Limits of Wireless Communications in a Fading
Environment when Using Multiple Antennas Wireless Personal Communications 6 311-35
[13] Langton C and Sklar B 2011 Tutorial 27 - Finding MIMO
[14] Lizhong Z and Tse D N C 2003 Diversity and multiplexing: a fundamental tradeoff in
multiple-antenna channels IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 49 1073-96
[15] Aboshosha A, El-Mashade M and Hegazy E 2018 Design and Analysis of Rectangular
Microstrip Patch Array Antenna WSEAS Transactions on Communications 17
[16] Kurekar P R and Khade S S 2017 Design and implementation of MIMO antenna for WLAN
application. In: 2017 International Conference on Communication and Signal Processing
(ICCSP), pp 0477-80

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