Design and analysis of Maxwell fisheye lens based beamformer

Abstract

Antenna arrays and multi-antenna systems are essential in beyond 5G wireless networks for providing wireless connectivity, especially in the context of Internet-of-Everything. To facilitate this requirement, beamforming technology is emerging as a key enabling solution for adaptive on-demand wireless coverage. Despite digital beamforming being the primary choice for adaptive wireless coverage, a set of applications rely on pure analogue beamforming approaches, e.g., in point-to-multi point and physical-layer secure communication links. In this work, we present a novel scalable analogue beamforming hardware architecture that is capable of adaptive 2.5-dimensional beam steering and beam shaping to fulfil the coverage requirements. Beamformer hardware comprises of a finite size Maxwell fisheye lens used as a scalable feed network solution for a semi-circular array of monopole antennas. This unique hardware architecture enables a flexibility of using 2 to 8 antenna elements. Beamformer development stages are presented while experimental beam steering and beam shaping results show good agreement with the estimated performance.

Geodesic Half-Maxwell Fish-Eye-Lens Antenna

“…If an MFE lens is cut into two half-MFE lenses, all rays that reach the middle cut have the same phase and are collimated. This property was used in [27]- [29] to create feeding networks and in [30]- [32] to produce directive antennas. However, since the rotational symmetry of the lens is broken, the lens only has one true focal point, leading to significant scan losses, as well as reflections/refractions at its aperture due to the discontinuous refractive index.…”

Inverse design of optical lenses enabled by generative flow-based invertible neural networks

“…Over the preceding decades, optical lenses have become increasingly valuable from a commercial standpoint and are extensively utilized in diverse applications, including beam shaping 1 , antennas 2 , 3 , autonomous vehicles 4 , 5 , and virtual reality products 6 , 7 . Obtaining an optical lens system of superior quality necessitates a complex design process and extensive refinement, thus requiring substantial dedication of time and effort.…”