Abstract
With the introduction of 5G communication systems operating in the mm-wave frequency range, new opportunities in terms of multimedia services and applications will become available. For this to happen, several technical challenges from an antenna standpoint need to be addressed. The achievements of high-gain characteristics and agile beamforming with wide-scan capabilities are the main targets of the ongoing research on mm-wave antenna arrays. In this paper, an up-to-date overview of antenna array technology for wireless communications at mm-wave frequencies is given. Particular focus is put on the review of the state-of-the art and most advanced antenna array concepts for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint radio links at said frequencies. Various figures of merit are assessed for a comprehensive analysis and bench marking of the technical solutions investigated in the presented survey.
Highlights
Wireless data traffic is exponentially increasing and such trend is expected to continue in the coming years. e capacity limit of wireless networks operating in the sub-6 GHz frequency band is effectively reached
A significant effort has been put in place for the development of wireless communication systems operating at mm-wave frequencies, where larger bandwidth is available so to satisfy future capacity needs. e main advantages of communication systems operating at mm-waves can be summarized as follows [2]: (i) Extremely wide bandwidths: compared to the frequency bands between 300 MHz and 3 GHz, mmwave applications can benefit from wider portions of spectrum and, data rates
(iii) Electromagnetic energy focusing: by virtue of the reduced operating wavelength, large-scale antenna arrays with more than 100 elements can be integrated into relatively small physical areas, allowing for adaptive beamforming to synthesize narrow beams with enhanced directivity characteristics which are instrumental to the delivery of better quality of service in real-life operative scenarios [3]
Summary
Wireless data traffic is exponentially increasing and such trend is expected to continue in the coming years. e capacity limit of wireless networks operating in the sub-6 GHz frequency band is effectively reached. In accordance with the aforementioned propagation loss models, one should target values of peak gain of about 26 dBi in order to enable a reliable quality of service up to 100 m in the frequency band at 28 GHz, as well as a scanning range of at least ±60° so to limit the required number of sectors to three or four (including some overlap margin) In this and several other operative scenarios, besides the wide-angle scanning capability, it is key to have antenna array solutions that feature stable gain and low Side-Lobe Level (SLL) characteristics. An extensive review of RCAs for 5G wireless communications is provided in [49]
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