Metasurface-based MIMO Antenna Design and Analysis for 5G Communication Systems

Abstract

This letter presents a novel four-port multiple-input output (MIMO) antenna incorporating a metasurface (MS) which has been designed for Sub-6 GHz 5G systems. In the design of the MIMO antenna and MS, an FR4 substrate with a thickness of 1.6 mm, a dielectric constant of 4.4, and a loss tangent of 0.02 was used as the dielectric material. The dimensions of the proposed MIMO antenna array are 1.03 λ0 × 1.03 λ0 × 0.017 λ0 at 3.19 GHz, where λ0 is the free space wavelength. The proposed metasurface-based antenna operates within the frequency range of 3.19 to 4.06 GHz, effectively covering N78 (3.3-3.8 GHz) 5G band. In addition to the N78 band, it also covers 93.33% of the N79 band (3.3-4.2 GHz). The design achieves an inter-element isolation of more than 17 dB, despite the antenna elements being about 0.34 λ₀ apart. Furthermore, the metasurface-based MIMO antenna achieves a peak gain of 6.85 dBi, has an ECC value with a maximum value of 0.025, and a DG value of approximately 9.99 dB. As a result, it can be said that the proposed novel antenna structure can be used in various Sub 6 GHz 5G applications