Air Gap Induced Microstrip Antenna for 2× 2 MIMO System for Non-Terrestrial UAV Communication at mm-wave Frequencies

The integration of Multiple-Input MultipleOutput (MIMO) technology with low-profile planar antennas significantly enhances the performance of non-terrestrial drone communication systems. This paper focuses on a circularly polarized microstrip antenna that operates in the Ka and W bands, encompassing wide range operation in the FR2 and Vehicular SRR bands by incorporating them into 4X1 SIMO, 2X2 MIMO and 4X4 MIMO systems, and that is tested for 26 GHz and 77 GHz. The antenna’s design, validated for multichannel operation in the FR2 band, has been evaluated for SIMO-MIMO performance, focusing on channel capacity, BER, diversity gain and channel estimation techniques. Comparative results between SISO, SIMO and MIMO configurations are presented, along with some mathematical analysis.