SAR Study of Different MIMO Antenna Designs for LTE Application in Smart Mobile Handsets

This paper mainly focuses on the specific absorption rate (SAR) of the dual-element LTE MIMO antenna in mobile phones. Four designs of dual-element MIMO antenna (namely, dual semi-ground-free planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA), co-located antenna, dual OG PIFA in parallel position, and dual OG PIFA in orthogonal position) are studied under four typical LTE frequency points (0.75, 0.85, 1.9, and 2.1/2.6 GHz) when the ground plane length varies from 90 to 150 mm. The SAR, when dual elements operate simultaneously, is also studied through the SAR to PEAK location spacing ratio (SPLSR) according to the FCC standard. The simulations are carried out on both an SAM head phantom and a flat phantom by CST 2011, and measurements on the flat phantom are made with iSAR and DASY4 to verify the accuracy of our simulations.