The demand for wide bandwidth has driven us to focus on the higher spectrum, the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum. The mmWave offers several advantages, such as wide bandwidth, low latency, and higher data rate, but the signal at these frequencies significantly suffers high atmospheric attenuation and path loss. To overcome these issues, array antennas are used as it provides high gain, better directivity, and bandwidth. This paper presents a detailed review of array antennas based on feeding methods and discusses reconfigurable arrays. The series-fed array results in a narrow bandwidth, high return losses, and low gain that can be resolved with tapered structures, coplanar waveguide (CPW), and SIW technique. Similarly, transmission losses, coupling losses, and high side lobe-levels in parallel-fed arrays can be addressed with multilayer structures, coplanar strips with CPW, pill-box transmission, ridge gap waveguide (RGWG), graphene material, and magnetoelectric dipoles. The merits of series and parallel feed methods are availed with the hybrid feed method. These feeding methods with arrays are extended to reconfigurable array along with active RF switch with stubs, continuous or discrete phase shifter, butler matrix, and/or graphene nanoplates. The parameter performance metrics of these arrays are summarized and concluded with the future scope.

This article presents a flexible four-element MIMO antenna designed on a thin polyimide substrate to operate at 30.50 GHz for wearable applications. The antenna element structure is a combination of circular rings combined with T-shape stubs. The MIMO antenna isolation is enhanced through a novel decoupling structure consisting of a rectangular stub, four open-ended horizontal strip lines, and two vertical strip lines connecting the ground plane. It provides 22.5 dB isolation, even with conformal orientation. A metamaterial (MTM) reflective surface of 9 × 9 unit cells is designed and placed below the antenna to improve its radiation characteristics, bandwidth, gain, and specific absorption rate (SAR). The metamaterial unit cell provides a double negative property with a wide stop-band range of 26.27-36.49 GHz. With an MTM surface, the measured bandwidth is 25.2-33 GHz with a maximum broadside gain of 8.90 dBi. The resulting SAR is reduced from 1.71 W/kg to 0.86 W/kg with MTM surface. The MIMO antenna with MTM improves the bandwidth by 56%, gain by 32.5%, and radiation from bidirectional to broadside, compared to the MIMO antenna without MTM. Also, the antenna is measured and validated for diversity parameters such as Envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), Diversity gain (DG), Channel coefficient loss (CCL), Total active reflection coefficient (TARC), and Mean effective gain (MEG). The reduced SAR and improved antenna performance suggest the proposed MIMO antenna with an MTM reflective surface is suitable for on-body wearable applications in IoT devices, smart watches, headwear, and footwear devices.

This article is aimed at designing an inventive compact-size quad-port antenna that can be operated within terahertz (THz) frequency spectra for a 6G high-speed wireless communication link. The single-element antenna comprises a lotus-petal-like radiating patch and a defected ground structure (DGS) on a 20 × 20 × 2 µm³ polyamide substrate and is designed to operate within the 8.96–13.5 THz frequency range. The THz antenna is deployed for a two-port MIMO configuration having a size of 46 × 20 × 2 µm³ with interelement separation of less than a quarter-wavelength of 0.18λ (λ at 9 THz). The two-port configuration operates in the 9–13.25 THz frequency range, with better than −25 dB isolation. Further, the two-port THz antenna is mirrored vertically with a separation of 0.5λ to form the four-port MIMO configuration. The proposed four-port THz antenna has dimensions of 46 × 46 × 2 µm³ and operates in the frequency range of 9–13 THz. Isolation improvement better than −25 dB is realized by incorporating parasitic elements onto the ground plane. Performance analysis of the proposed antenna in terms of MIMO diversity parameters, viz., envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) < 0.05, diversity gain (DG) ≈ 10, mean effective gain (MEG) < −3 dB, total active reflection coefficient (TARC) < −10 dB, channel capacity loss (CCL) < 0.3 bps/Hz, and multiplexing efficiency (ME) < 0 dB, is performed to justify the appropriateness of the proposed antenna for MIMO applications. The antenna has virtuous radiation properties with good gain, which is crucial for any wireless communication system, especially for the THz communication network.

A double-stub matching technique is used to design a dual-band monopole antenna at 28 and 38 GHz. The transmission line stubs represent the matching elements. The first matching network comprises series capacitive and inductive stubs, causing impedance matching at the 28 GHz band with a wide bandwidth. On the other hand, the second matching network has two shunt inductive stubs, generating resonance at 38 GHz. A Smith chart is utilized to predict the stub lengths. While incorporating their dimensions physically, some of the stub lengths are fine-tuned. The proposed antenna is compact with a profile of $0.75{\lambda }_1\times 0.66{\lambda }_1$ (where ${\lambda }_1$ is the free-space wavelength at 28 GHz). The measured bandwidths are 27–28.75 GHz and 36.20–42.43 GHz. Although the physical series capacitance of the first matching network is a slot in the ground plane, the antenna is able to achieve a good gain of 7 dBi in both bands. The proposed antenna has a compact design, good bandwidth and gain, making it a candidate for 5G wireless applications.

Advancement in smartwatch sensors and connectivity features demands low latency communication with a wide bandwidth. ISM bands below 6 GHz are reaching a threshold. The millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum is the solution for future smartwatch applications. Therefore, a compact dual-band antenna operating at 25.5 and 38 GHz is presented here. The characteristics mode theory (CMT) aids the antenna design process by exciting Mode 1 and 2 as well as Mode 1–3 at their respective bands. In addition, the antenna structure generates two traverse modes, TM₁₀ and TM₀₂, at the lower and higher frequency bands. The antenna measured a bandwidth (BW) of 1.5 (25–26.5 GHz) and 2.5 GHz (37–39.5 GHz) with a maximum gain of 7.4 and 7.3 dBi, respectively. The antenna performance within the watch case (stainless steel) showed a stable |S₁₁| with a gain improvement of 9.9 and 10.9 dBi and a specific absorption rate (SAR) of 0.063 and 0.0206 W/kg, respectively, at the lower and higher bands. The link budget analysis for various rotation angles of the watch indicated that, for a link margin of 20 dB, the antenna can transmit/receive 1 Gbps of data. However, significant fading was noticed at certain angles due to the shadowing effect caused by the watch case itself. Nonetheless, the antenna has a workable bandwidth, a high gain, and a low SAR, making it suitable for smartwatch and IoT applications.