Diversity and MIMO Performance Evaluation of Compact Multi Element Antennas With Common Phase Center

The diversity and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) performance provided by compact Multi Element Antennas (MEA) with common phase center is evaluated using two practical methods which make use of the realized active element antenna patterns, including thus both mutual coupling and mismatch at antenna ports. As a case study, two and four printed Inverted F Antenna (IFA) systems are evaluated in terms of Effective Diversity Gain (EDG) and Capacity (C). The concept of receive antenna selection is also investigated and the simulation results show a 43% improvement in the 1% outage C of a reconfigurable 2x2 MIMO system over a fixed 2x2 one.