A compact wideband self-decoupled multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antenna is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna contains a pair of horizontal back-to-back elliptical tapered slots and a vertical elliptical tapered slot, which are etched on the circular metal patch. Based on characteristic mode analysis (CMA) and a suitable feeding structure, two desired characteristic modes (CMs) are excited. Therefore, across the entire matched bandwidth, a high level of isolation is realized without external decoupling structures. For validation, a prototype is fabricated and measured, and the measured results demonstrate that an impedance bandwidth of 3000 MHz with isolation higher than 20dB is achieved. Due to its self-decoupled property, high isolation, wide bandwidth, and compact size, the proposed antenna has excellent potential for 5G antenna array applications.
Keywords: characteristic mode analysis (CMA); multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna; self-decoupled antenna; the fifth generation (5G).