Abstract
A low-profile, compact, four-element, eight-port multiple-input--multiple-output and diversity antenna for 5G Internet of Things and cellular handheld applications is presented in this letter. This antenna structure contains four antenna elements, which are same in its configuration. The antenna ground dimensions are taken similar to a modern mobile handset, i.e., 60 mm × 120 mm. The four antenna elements are situated at four corners of antenna ground structure. Each antenna element has two feeding ports, thus making a total of eight-port antenna. A single antenna element has two feeding plates, which are placed perpendicular to one another so that they become cross polarized, thus exploiting polarization diversity, whereas spatial diversity also exists between different antenna elements. For reducing mutual coupling between different antenna ports, slots are cut in ground plane, including a small strip etched along the entire length of ground plane and rectangular slots cut in ground plane under every antenna element. The minimum bandwidth attained by all eight ports for S 11 < -10 dB is more than 1.4 GHz from 2.4 GHz to more than 3.8 GHz, which testify that it covers majority of frequency bands allocated for 5G sub-6 GHz spectrum. The isolation obtained between different ports has a minimum value of -13 dB, and the maximum value goes below -30 dB. For the covered frequency bands by this antenna structure, the correlation coefficient is found to be below 0.03, whereas the measured peak gain is in the range of 3.2--5 dB.