Disruptive Beamforming Trends – 3. QUB White paper
In response to the challenges of designing 5G-ready beamformer hardware at mmWave (re. my articles of the last two months), disruptive technological trends have emerged that are likely to change the way we look at mmWave beamforming hardware, like using of a multi-stage lens-based beamformer, or a channel sounding technique that uses a metallic cavity with sub-wavelength holes on one side and a scatterer placed inside.
Another solution is related to mmWave 5G field trials. Although it is always better to rely on channel measurements and field trials to test the practical limits of the mmWave 5G before commercial deployment, rigorous field trials are often not possible or too expensive to execute. Because of this limitation, the investigation of novel approaches within a network is not possible. In the past, the network planning sector and researchers often relied on a theoretical model to predict network performance. A single antenna used for the network calculations was often considered as an ideal omnidirectional radiator. This approximation was valid because of the simplicity of the system at sub-6 GHz 5G bands.
For mmWave 5G wireless, the assumption of an antenna as an ideal radiator can easily lead to the overestimation of the network performance. The least we can do is to integrate the practically measured 3D beamformer radiation patterns with the communication models. This approach is even more critical for dense urban environments, where connectivity and reliability of the entire network depend primarily upon the radiation performance of high directivity beamformers.
This new technique can reliably estimate the practical communication system performance by including the measured near-field and far-field 3D radiation patterns into the network calculations that are measured in an anechoic environment like the one shown below.
Next month, I will show one final technique for addressing these challenges and conclude my analysis on mmWave 5G beamformers.
Disruptive Beamforming Trends – 3. QUB White paper
©Queens University Belfast 2020
About the Authors:
Dr. M. Ali Babar Abbasi is a researcher in the Centre for Wireless Innovation and lecturer at the School of Electronics Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. Profile.
Professor Vincent Fusco (FIEEE, FREng, FIAE, MRIA, FIET) is a researcher in the Centre for Wireless Innovation, Professor of High Frequency Electronics at the School of Electronics Engineering and CTO of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) at Queen’s University Belfast. Profile.
For detailed information on our mmWave 5G beamformers, please contact Norbert Sagnard, Business Development Manager at Queen’s University Belfast [E] n.sagnard@qub.ac.uk
