Design of a MIMO 5G Indoor Base Station Antenna using Unit Cells

A methodology based on the design of antennas with the use of unit cells is presented in this paper. The methodology is applied to a previously presented 4-port cavity-backed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna which is split in 4 identical unit cells due to its symmetric geometry. In the presented study, it is demonstrated that with the analysis of only the unit cell of the antenna the behaviour of the whole design can be predicted. Thanks to this methodology, the design of complex N-port antennas is simplified to the analysis of a unit cell and opens a new via for designing symmetric N-port antennas for massive MIMO applications.