Abstract
This paper presents a multipath component (MPC) parameter estimator that uses a double-directional (D-D) channel sounding system in WiGig millimeter-wave bands. It employs low-cost commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) RF transceivers capable of beam steering within an azimuth angle range of ±45°; the transmit power is approximately 31 dBm, equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP), including a total antenna gain of approximately 19 dBi. The half-power beam widths in the azimuth and elevation planes are 6° and 45°, respectively. A fast D-D channel acquisition in 360° full azimuth range can be achieved by developing a 4 ×4 multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) time division-multiplexing (TDM) scheme that enables simultaneous use of four antenna arrays at both sides of the transmitter and receiver. The beam switching for all combinations ( 48 ×48 = 2304) with 12 beams at each array requires less than 200 ms, excluding optional procedure related to data storage. A high-resolution MPC extraction method was developed from the D-D angular delay power spectra obtained using the sub-grid CLEAN algorithm, which is applicable when phase coherence among multiple snapshots obtained via the beam-switching measurement cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, the operation of the developed system was validated via a measurement at 58.32 GHz in an office floor of a university laboratory. From the data analysis, the cluster properties and the corresponding scattering processes were identified.
Highlights
To use new spectrum at the 28 GHz band in fifthgeneration (5G) mobile communications, various research and standardization activities have been conducted [1]
This study presented a novel multipath component (MPC) parameter estimator using a D-D channel sounding system employing low-cost COTS RF transceivers in WiGig millimeter-wave bands
By configuring the 4 × 4 MIMO scheme, a fast full D-D azimuth sweep can be realized within 200 ms, except for the optional procedure for buffering and storage
Summary
To use new spectrum at the 28 GHz band in fifthgeneration (5G) mobile communications, various research and standardization activities have been conducted [1]. A virtual synthetic array with low-gain antennas can be used [14]–[18] to capture the channel in an element space by physically moving a single antenna element along multiple positions to form a full array This requires strict phase coherence to obtain the angle-resolved power spectrum by beamforming, as well as a very long measurement time. In this study, a low-cost mm-wave channel sounding system leveraging commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) beamforming RF transceivers [24] is developed, which enables acquisition of a fast D-D channel using electronic beam steering in the 360◦ full azimuth angle range using phased array antennas. Note that this work does not require strict phase coherence among multiple snapshots obtained via the beam-switching measurement because the angle-resolved power spectra are used in the post processing as described in the subsequent section. We should modify the baseband unit to improve the measurement time further
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