A Compact Wideband MIMO Antenna With Two Novel Bent Slits

A compact wideband multiple-input- multiple-output (MIMO) antenna is presented. The MIMO antenna consists of two symmetric monopoles with edge-to-edge separation of nearly 0.083 λ₀ at 2.5 GHz. Two novel bent slits are etched into the ground plane. At the lower frequencies, the bent slits can reduce the mutual coupling and have slight effect on the reflection coefficient. At the higher frequencies, the slits can be considered as slit antennas to widen the impedance bandwidth because the two slits are coupled fed by two 50-Ω microstrip lines, respectively. Two triangles are cut from the ground plane. In this way, the reflection coefficient and isolation of the two slit antennas can be improved. A bandwidth of 92.7% with |S₁₁| ≤ -10 dB and |S₂₁ | ≤ -18 dB from 2.4 to 6.55 GHz is achieved. In order to provide quantifications for the performance of the MIMO antenna in real-world usage conditions, the effects of human hand and head on the performance of the MIMO antenna are investigated. The results show that the MIMO antenna serving as a phone antenna can provide spatial and pattern diversity to combat multipath fading.