This paper investigates the performance of multiple monopole antennas mounted on a card-type terminal, which is expected to be used in the systems beyond 3 G, based on the calculated and measured radiation patterns for the 2.0 GHz. We characterize the feasible performance of quarter-wavelength monopole antennas mounted on a card-type terminal in a multiple antenna configuration with narrow element spacing of less than a half-wavelength assuming that the antennas used must satisfy the space restrictions of the mobile terminal. Performance figures of merit for the multiple antenna performance include the beamforming gain, correlation coefficient, and MIMO channel capacity. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of a finite ground plane on the characteristics of multiple monopole antennas using a typical antenna configuration comprising a simple finite ground plane and multiple monopole antennas to discuss the fundamental characteristics.

A small microstrip-fed monopole antenna using an L-shaped notch is presented for ultra wideband applications. The proposed antenna, with compact size of 15.521 mm2 including the ground plane, is designed to operate over the frequency band between 3.05 and 10.9 GHz for S11 < -10 dB. Good return loss and radiation pattern characteristics are obtained in the frequency band of interest.