Printed Dipole Array for MIMO Wireless Networks

In this article, we present a linear printed dipole array of two radiating elements for potential use in IEEE 802.1 In wireless local area networks. The dipoles are fed through a microstrip balun and are oriented in a fashion that introduces pattern diversity. Advantages of the proposed design are low cost, ease of fabrication and high impedance bandwidth. Mutual coupling between antenna elements is below 20 dB for the measured frequency range (2-6.6 GHz). The measured impedance bandwidth is 29.3 percent (699 MHz) at the lower band and 26.41 percent (1.483 GHz) at the upper band. The array was constructed on Duroid 5870 and the measured S parameters and radiation pattern were found to be in agreement with theory and simulations. The spatial correlation is computed from the measured S parameters and the theoretical capacity is evaluated based on Monte Carlo realisations of the channel and the signal correlation amongst radiating elements.