Low-Profile and Closely Spaced Four-Element MIMO Antenna for Wireless Body Area Networks

A compact four-element multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) antenna is proposed for medical applications operating at a 2.4 GHz ISM band. The proposed MIMO design occupies an overall volume of 26 mm x 26 mm x 0.8 mm. This antenna exhibits a good impedance matching at the operating frequency of the ISM band, whose performance attributes include: isolation around 25 dB, envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) less than 0.02, average channel capacity loss (CCL) less than 0.3 bits/s/Hz and diversity gain (DG) of around 10 dB. The average peak realized gain of the four-element MIMO antenna is 2.4 dBi with more than 77 % radiation efficiency at the frequency of interest (ISM 2.4 GHz). The compact volume and adequate bandwidth, as well as the good achieved gain, make this antenna a strong candidate for bio-medical wearable applications.