System Advantages of Using Large-Scale Aperiodic Array Topologies in Future mm-Wave 5G/6G Base Stations: An Interdisciplinary Look

Abstract

The encouraging potential of employing large-scale aperiodic base station arrays in addressing the radiation pattern and thermal requirements of the next generation communication systems is demonstrated. Sample 256-element layout-optimized multibeam arrays are presented as a futuristic view. The system benefits (in terms of the statistical quality-of-service, energy efficiency, thermal management, and processing burden) of the proposed arrays, as well as their performance versus design complexity tradeoffs, are explained through interdisciplinary simulations.The key advantage of the proposed antennas over the currently proposed 64-element periodic arrays is identified as the increased gain with much lower side lobes, which yields much less power and less heat per element with more surface for cooling, and allows robust/computationally efficient precoding.

Wireless and Optical Convergent Access Technologies Toward 6G

“…Two important researches on the array topology are presented in [73] and [74]. In [73], Temiz et al investigated the impact of the antenna array geometry in the mutual coupling and channel correlation, by exploiting a directional wideband single antenna element for the antenna array and UE.…”

“…The obtained results proved the shifted array outperforms the uniform conventional array in terms of network capacity, due to a lower level of mutual coupling and lower channel correlation (lower than −15 dB for the linear array and −20 dB for the shifted array), especially in lineline-of-sight (LOS) propagation. Additionally, an element spacing periodicity investigation on the array topology was made by Aslan et al [74] in 2021. They considered four different array topologies for evaluating the interference among multiple users and demonstrating aperiodic element distribution has the potential of increasing the system quality of service (QoS) in terms of inter-user interference reduction.…”

Orthogonal Versus Zero-Forced Beamforming in Multibeam Antenna Systems: Review and Challenges for Future Wireless Networks

“…brought by the array layout irregularity [45], [156]- [162]. Motivated by this, recently, the idea of employing optimized coverage-specific aperiodic multibeam array antenna layouts with low side lobes (<−30 dB) and optimal power efficiencies was proposed in [163]. The set of beams generated by such multibeam array layouts can be considered as "quasi zero-forced" due to the very low level of interference between its beam ports.…”

Spectral Efficiency Improvement of 5G Massive MIMO Systems for High-Altitude Platform Stations by Using Triangular Lattice Arrays

“…This is detrimental to the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) in massive MIMO systems with multiuser communication within the same time–frequency resource. Recently, a solution based on aperiodic antenna element arrangement capable of reducing the PSLL inside a defined sector cell for massive MIMO systems has been proposed in Reference [ 32 ]. However, the array aperiodicity considerably increases the design complexity of the feeding network, as well as complicating the array calibration.…”