Compact MIMO Antenna for MUSIC-Based Angle of Arrival Estimation in Wrist-Worn Devices

In this work we propose a compact Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna for wrist-worn devices. The design is capable of unidirectional beamsteering across the entire horizontal plane, a property that is exploited for Angle of Arrival (AoA) Estimation based localization applications. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated using the high-resolution MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm. Full -wave simulated results of the antenna in free-space show a peak realized gain of 5 dBi and estimated mean absolute errors < 0.36°. The gain and the estimated errors change to respectively 4.26 dBi and 0.45°, when using a human forearm phantom. The achieved results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed antenna for localization applications using compact wrist-worn devices.