Printed MIMO Antenna Systems: Performance Metrics, Implementations and Challenges

Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology has become an integral part of wireless systems nowadays. This technology depends on the use of multiple antenna elements at the mobile terminal as well as the base station. The design of compact printed MIMO antenna systems is a challenging task specially when it is made for small factor mobile terminals. The introduction of MIMO brought with it several performance metrics and measurement methods to allow the designer gauge the performance of his antenna system in real environments. This paper will give an overview of such new metrics, it will give several recent example of printed MIMO antenna systems and will shine some light of some current challenges that designers face when dealing with such multi-antenna systems. Some future perspectives are also presented.