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.2015.2435992, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> AWPL-04-15-0658< 1

Mutual Coupling Reduction for UWB MIMO

Antennas with a Wideband Neutralization Line
Shuai Zhang, and Gert Frølund Pedersen

 In this paper, a broadband neutralized line is proposed and

Abstract—A wideband neutralization line is proposed to reduce
the mutual coupling of a compact ultrawideband (UWB) MIMO
antenna. With the introduced decoupling method, the designed
UWB MIMO antenna covers the band of 3.1-5 GHz with an
isolation of higher than 22 dB. The proposed wideband
neutralization line is not necessarily placed in the clearance area
between two MIMO elements and can be put above the copper
ground. A small clearance (antenna area) of 35 mm × 16 mm is
achieved. The designed UWB MIMO antenna is fabricated. S
parameters, radiation patterns, total efficiency and realized gain
of the prototype are measured and compared with the
simulations.
Index Terms—MIMO, UWB antenna, mutual coupling
I. INTRODUCTION
utilized for the decoupling of a compact UWB MIMO antenna.
The designed UWB MIMO antenna can cover the lower UWB
band of 3.1-5 GHz with the mutual coupling lower than -22 dB.
Since the proposed neutralization line can be placed above the
ground plane without modifying the ground plane, a small
clearance (antenna area) of 35 mm × 16 mm is achieve in the
designed MIMO antenna. Simulations and measurements are
carried out to verify the effectiveness of the wideband
neutralization line. All the numerical simulations in this paper
are carried out with the CST Microwave Studio 2014
simulation software [8].
II. UWB MIMO ANTENNA WITH A WIDEBAND
NEUTRALIZATION LINE

M ULTIPLE-INPUT and multiple-output (MIMO) technology

has been widely utilized in different systems to
significantly improve the channel capacity. Ultrawideband
(UWB) MIMO antennas applied in portable devices have
drawn great attention recently. However, in a portable device,
the wideband mutual coupling between UWB MIMO elements
will affect the performance of the antenna system [1].
Furthermore, wideband isolation enhancement is very
challenging issue, especially in the lower UWB band of 3.1-5
GHz.
Recently, several techniques have been studied and used to
reduce the wideband mutual coupling of UWB MIMO
antennas. In [2], a tree-like wideband parasitic element was
inserted between two monopoles. Two UWB MIMO elements
with different polarizations and patterns were integrated in a
compact USB dongle for isolation enhancement [3]. In [4], two
metal strips and different polarizations were applied.
Miniaturized double-layer EBG structures were etched on the
ground plane for broadband mutual coupling reduction [5]. A
promising technique of the neutralization line was first raised in
[6]. It requires little space between two MIMO elements and no
modifications on the ground plane of a MIMO antenna system.
However, it is difficult to reduce wideband mutual coupling
with a conventional neutralization line.
Manuscript received on January 24, 2015.
Shuai Zhang and Gert Frølund Pedersen are with the Antennas, Propagation
and Radio Networking section at the Department of Electronic Systems,
Faculty of Engineering and Science, Aalborg University, Denmark (email:
sz@es.aau.dk).
Fig. 1. Geometries of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna with a wideband
neutralization line.
The geometries of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna are
shown in Fig. 1. Two closely-spaced monopoles with a distance
of 2.2 mm are printed on a 35 mm × 33 mm FR 4 substrate. The
thickness, permittivity, and loss tangent of the substrate are 0.8
mm, 4.3, and 0.025, respectively. The clearance of the MIMO
antenna system is 35mm × 16 mm. A wideband neutralization
line is connected to and inserted between two monopoles. The
neutralization line consists of two metal strips and a metal
circular disc. The circular disc allows several possible
decoupling current paths with different lengths to cancel the
coupling current on the ground plane. Hence, a wideband
decoupling can be achieved. Furthermore, a circular slot is
etched on the metal circular disc of the neutralization line. This
slot can lower the highest decoupling frequencies to 5 GHz.
The distances from the bottom of the ground plane to the center
of the monopole disc (C1), metal circular disc (on the

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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.2015.2435992, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> AWPL-04-15-0658<
neutralization line) (C2), and circular slot (C3) are 24.8 mm, 9.6
mm and 11 mm, respectively.
Fig. 2. Simulated S parameters of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna with and
without a wideband neutralization line.
Fig. 3. Simulated total efficiencies of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna with
and without a wideband neutralization line (NL).
The simulated S parameters of the proposed UWB MIMO
antenna are given in Fig. 2. The designed UWB MIMO antenna
covers the band of 3.1-5 GHz with the mutual coupling much
lower than -22 dB. As a comparison, the S parameters without
the wideband neutralization line are also provided. With the
designed decoupling technique, the isolation between two
UWB MIMO elements can be efficiently improved by 12-25
dB. In Fig. 3, we also see that adding the wideband
neutralization line will degrade the bandwidth. It is mainly due
to the higher mutual coupling in the case without neutralization
which will reduce the return loss. Furthermore, a large part of
the neutralization line above the ground plane, which will
enlarge the capacitance between the ground and the
neutralization line. Since the wideband neutralization line is
connected to two MIMO elements, finally it will slightly
enlarge the Q factor of MIMO antenna elements and slightly
reduce the bandwidth. However, the bandwidth of the proposed
UWB MIMO antenna can still successfully cover the lower
UWB band of 3.1-5 GHz.
Generally speaking, when MIMO antennas operate in a
high-frequency band, i.e., higher than 1.7 GHz, in most cases
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the correlations between MIMO elements are very low due to
the high radiation efficiency [11]. The total efficiencies of the
MIMO antenna elements are the factor to limit the MIMO or
diversity performance in the higher band. The proposed
wideband neutralization line can efficiently enhance the
isolation between MIMO elements so that the total efficiency of
the proposed UWB MIMO antenna can be improved. The
simulated total efficiencies of the proposed UWB MIMO
antenna with and without a wideband neutralization line (NL)
are shown in Fig. 3. The total efficiency improvement with the
wideband NL is observed clearly. Moreover, if we further
decrease the inter-element distance from 2.2 mm (see Fig.1) to
0.2 mm. The total efficiency difference with or without
wideband NL becomes more significant. It proves that even in
the extremely small inter-element space the proposed
decoupling method can still work efficiently.
In order to investigate the wideband decoupling mechanism,
a parametric study has been carried out. The S parameters with
different circular slot radiuses R3 are presented in Fig. 4. It is
observed that with R3 changing from 2.2 mm to 2.8 mm, S11 is
almost the same, while in S21 the highest decoupling frequency
moves to the lower frequency. Furthermore, we can also notice
that with a larger R3, the mutual coupling is reduced more
significantly. This is because a larger R3 will lead to a higher
decoupling current density on the metal disc of neutralization
line and thus the decoupling field is stronger.
Fig. 4. Simulated S parameters with different values of R3.
The current distributions of the proposed UWB MIMO
antenna with and without a wideband neutralization line are
illustrated in Fig. 5 to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
decoupling. The current distributions are obtained when the
Port 1 (the left MIMO element in Fig. 5) are excited at 3.3 GHz,
4 GHz and 4.7 GHz. With the wideband neutralization line, the
coupling current flowing from Port 1 to Port 2 can dramatically
be suppressed, which leads to the lower mutual couplings. The
current distribution on the back side of the proposed UWB
MIMO antenna at 4 GHz is provided in Fig. 6. On the center of
the ground plane the current is very weak. In fact, for the other
frequencies in the band of 3.1-5 GHz, the currents in this area
are also weak. In practice, this area can be used for the RF
circuits, where the circuits impact very little on the antenna
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.2015.2435992, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> AWPL-04-15-0658<
performance. In this paper, we will utilize it for placing the
feeding cable to reduce the cable impacts on the proposed
MIMO antenna performance.
Fig. 5. Current distributions of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna with and
without a wideband neutralization line.
z
x y
Fig. 6. Current distribution on the back of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna
with a wideband neutralization line at 4 GHz. (The color bar for the strength of
the currents is the same as that in Fig. 5.)
III. MEASUREMENTS
Fig. 7. Prototype of the proposed UWB MIMO antenna with a wideband
neutralization line.
To verify the proposed decoupling method, a prototype has
been fabricated and shown in Fig. 7. The compactness of the
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design antenna is clearly observed. In the simulation, discreet
ports are applied. Similar to the prototype feeding method in [3],
the fabricated UWB MIMO elements are fed by two thin cables
to excite the same mode as those in the simulations. Like most
of small antennas, the small ground plane in the proposed
antenna may lead to the leakage currents flowing from the
ground plane to the connectors and cables. Two ferrite rings
have been utilized in [3] to suppress the leakage current.
However, the ferrites will reduce the antenna total efficiency. In
this paper we will make two thin cables soldered on the ground
plane, bent and protrude out from a carefully select position —
the weak current area in Fig. 6— without the ferrite rings. Due
to weak current in this area, very little current on the ground
plane will flow to the cable. From our simulations, if the thin
cables are longer than 3 cm or shorter than 1 cm, this cable
arrangement in Fig. 7 will affect very little on the MIMO
antenna S parameters, radiation patterns, total efficiencies and
gain in the band of 3.1-5 GHz.
Fig. 8. Measured and simulated S parameters of the proposed UWB MIMO
antenna.
The S parameters of the fabricated UWB MIMO are
measured and also compared with the simulated results, as
shown in Fig. 8. The measurements agree well with the
simulations. The proposed antenna covers the lower UWB band
of 3.1 GHz to 5 GHz with the isolation over than 22 dB.
The radiation patterns, total efficiency and realized gains of
the fabricated UWB MIMO are measured in a Satimo chamber
[9]. The measured results are obtained when Port 1 (see Fig. 1)
is excited and Port 2 is terminated with a 50 ohm load. The
measured and simulated radiation patterns are compared at 3.3
GHz, 4 GHz and 4.7 GHz, as given in Fig. 9. In general, the
measured radiation patterns are very similar to the simulated.
Since the positioner in the measurement is located in –z
direction (see Fig. 1), the measured radiation patterns around
180 degree in Fig. 9 (a) and (e) have some differences with the
simulations. Furthermore, the measured patterns are a little
more directional than the simulations. The envelope correlation
coefficient (ECC) is calculated with the measured 3D E-field
radiation patterns [7]. The ECC is lower than 0.1 across the
operating band. The measured and simulated total efficiency
and realized gain are presented in Fig. 10. The good agreements
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.2015.2435992, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
> AWPL-04-15-0658<
between the simulations and measurements for both total
efficiency and realized gain are achieved. Please note that
although the measured total efficiency is slightly smaller than
the simulated, due to more directional radiation patterns in the
measurement, the measured gain can still agree well with the
simulated gain.
Fig. 9. Radiation patterns at 3.3 GHz, 4 GHz and 4.7 GHz, measured results on:
(a) x-z plane, (c) x-y plane, and (e) y-z plane; simulated results on: (b) x-z plane,
(d) x-y plane, and (f) y-z plane.
Fig. 10. Measured and simulated total efficiency and realized gain.
The comparisons between the proposed antenna and the
previous reported UWB MIMO antennas are listed in Table I.
Compared with [2] and [4], the proposed antenna has a much
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smaller antenna area size and higher isolation. Although the
bandwidth in [2] and [4] is wider than the proposed work, the
isolation enhancement in 3.1-5 GHz is the most challenging
part in the whole UWB band of 3.1-10.6 GHz. In addition, due
to the dispersion, the recent trend is to use the lower UWB band
(3.1-5 GHz) and the higher UWB band (6-10.6 GHz) separately.
Compared with [10], [3] and [5], the proposed antenna has a
much smaller size while still covering the lower UWB band of
3.1-5 GHz with a high isolation.
TABLE I. THE COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE PROPOSED ANTENNA AND THE
PREVIOUS REPORTED UWB MIMO ANTENNAS
Reference Antenna Area Bandwidth Isolation
(Clearance) Size (GHz) (dB)
(mm2)
[10] 37×34.5 3.1-5 -20 dB
[2] 35×27.25 3.1-10.6 -16 dB
[3] 30×25 3.1-5.15 -26 dB
[4] 32×26 3.1-10.6 -15 dB
[5] 60×40 3-6 -20 dB
This work 35×16 3.1-5 -22 dB
IV. CONCLUSION
A UWB MIMO antenna has been designed in this paper with
a wideband neutralization line. It has covered the band of 3.1
GHz-5 GHz with an isolation over 22 dB. The parametric study
and current distributions have been given to investigate the
decoupling mechanism. In order to verify the introduced idea, a
prototype of the designed antenna has been fabricated and
measured. The simulations agrees well with the measurements.
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