| Diversity reception techniques are well known methods to reduce the effects of multipath fading in mobile wireless communications. This technique can be implemented by using independent antenna elements as the branches to form a MultiElement Antenna (MEA) to realize a diversity antenna. The antenna geometry used is an aperture coupled microstrip antenna. The center frequency, f0 = 5.2 GHz, is chosen to lie within the 5–6 GHz Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) bands in the United States. Initially, the antenna characteristics (material, geometry, radiation) are investigated to understand the interaction between adjacent elements. Secondly, techniques to reduce the physical size of the individual antenna elements are studied. Lastly, the design of compact MEAs utilizing combinations of space, polarization, and angle diversity are presented. Fabrication and measurement of antenna designs are included. |
