Reduction of the Envelope Correlation Coefficient With Improved Total Efficiency for Mobile LTE MIMO Antenna Arrays: Mutual Scattering Mode

A mutual scattering mode is introduced in this paper. Utilizing this mode, the correlation of a lossy long-term evolution (LTE) multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antenna array can be reduced efficiently, even down to zero, by increasing the Q factors of the MIMO antenna elements. In practice, the Q factors can be straight forwardly tuned through different input impedance matching. The zero correlation occurs at a Q factor higher than that resulting from the conjugate input impedance matching. On one hand, if the inter-element distance is larger than a certain distance (what we denominate as the Critical Distance), the total efficiency can also be improved in addition to reducing the correlation. On the other hand, when the inter-element distance is less than the critical distance, a reference MIMO antenna with high correlation and high total efficiency is obtained. This antenna can well be proposed for over-the-air (OTA) measurement applications. The introduced scattering mode is investigated for dual monopoles on a large lossy ground plane and for various mobile terminal MIMO antenna designs. A wideband MIMO antenna, with multiple resonances, covering the band 746–870 MHz is proposed with the envelope correlation coefficient and total efficiency less than 0.5 and higher than 50% ( $-$ 3 dB), respectively. Measurements and simulations agree well for all the fabricated prototypes. The envelope correlations and the multiplexing efficiencies of the prototypes are also investigated in propagation channels with Gaussian distributed angle of arrivals.