An Effective MIMO Antenna Design for 5G and Beyond

The development of sustainable and resilient networking and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, dispersed computing, and beyond 5th Generation (5G) are expected to play a crucial role in the realization of Industry 5.0. More specifically, antennas are recognized as a vital technology to support the continuously growing demand for 5G/6G connectivity and data rates. In the development of wireless communication systems, an effective antenna design is critical. In this work, we present the design and modeling of a hexagonal microstrip antenna for using in ultra-wide band applications such as 5G mobile networks. The hexagonal geometry is selected over conventional rectangular or circular designs due to its superior harmonic suppression, enhanced bandwidth scalability, and symmetric radiation patterns, which mitigate cross-polarization and improve multi-band performance. The suggested antenna has a frequency range of 3.3 GHz to 4.5 GHz with percentage bandwidth of 36.36%, dimensions of 20 mm × 14 mm, and is built on an FR-4 substrate, with a relative permittivity of 4.3, and of 1.6 mm in height. The printed antenna size is of 18.9mm × 2.3mm which represents the dipole and hexagon shape heights times the dipole width. It is expected that this antenna will operate in two notched bands with resonance frequencies of 3.3 GHz and 4.5 GHz and a Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) of less than 2. The proposed antenna, which has been expanded to be a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna, was created and modeled using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave Studio. The comparison against the recent works shows the efficiency of the proposed design. Overall, the proposed antenna has bandwidth of 1.2 GHz with gain of 3.5.