Design of Millimeter Wave Antenna Arrays for 5G
Cellular Applications using FEKO
Gopinath Gampala and C. J. Reddy
Altair Engineering, Inc.
Hampton, USA
gopi@altair.com; cjreddy@altair.com
Abstract—The technologies under development in the world
of mobile broadband networks specifically focusing on the next
generation of standards, namely 5G, are targeting the millimeter
wave spectrum of 28 GHz and beyond. This paper discusses some
of these futuristic technologies that are laying the foundation for
the 5G standards, highlighting the concept of massive MIMO
that employs antenna arrays and beamforming techniques to
address the high data rate demands.
Keywords—5G, milimeter wave, massive MIMO, beamforming,
data rate, FEKO
I. INTRODUCTION
Starting from 1982, since the first generation of mobile
network standards, a new standard comes along every 10 years
or so. These standards are developed to serve the current and
future demands of the mobile users. But, the mobile traffic
worldwide is increasing exponentially each year and the trend
will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Wireless
standards groups have devised all sorts of clever fixes to
expand the capacity of today’s 4G LTE cellular networks,
including the use of multiple antennas, smaller cells, etc.
However, none of the existing solutions will sustain the
oncoming traffic surge for more than the next four to six years.
This trend is forcing the researchers to develop new
technologies that can sustain the future demand and also lay a
foundation for the next set of standards, namely 5G [1].
II. 5G TECHNOLOGY
5G standards doesn’t exist yet, but research groups are
working on technologies that will lay the foundation for the
standard. Some of the focusing areas of these technologies are
wireless access systems, frequency utilization, power
consumption, antenna and propagation, etc.
A. 5G Spectrum
Cellular industry so far has relied exclusively on the UHF
frequency band which comprises only 1% of the regulated
spectrum. These frequencies are highly coveted, woefully
scarce and no matter how much operators are willing to pay for
this spectrum, they can no longer get enough out of it. But
there is an enormous expanse in the millimeter wave spectrum,
more specifically 28 GHz and beyond that is largely
overlooked until now. On October 22nd’ 2015, FCC proposed
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new rules (FCC 15–138) for wireless broadband frequencies of
28 GHz, 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 64 – 71 GHz bands. These are
the frequency bands researchers targeting for 5G applications.
It was previously assumed that physical and technology
limitations couldn’t support mobile service in these bands. But,
the new developments in the futuristic 5G technologies may
allow the use of these high frequencies for improved capacity
and faster speeds of mobile broadband networks.
B. Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT is a network of physical objects to collect and exchange
data. It allows these objects to be sensed and controlled
remotely for a more direct integration between the physical
world and computer-based systems to improve the efficiency.
The key to IoT is “big data” as it is expected to generate large
amounts of data from diverse locations. This will very likely
increase the need for storage and processing of data, but an
elaborate discussion on this topic is beyond the scope of this
paper. The terms IoT and 5G are used interchangeably because
of the commonality in the objectives of both. The former will
not only create new demands in terms of the capacity of the
network to transmit data but also the capacity in terms of
number of connected users that can be managed by the
network, which is also the primary objective of the later
C. 5G Objectives
The main objectives of 5G will be targeted towards
improving the capacity of the networks with better coverage at
a lower cost. A greater emphasis will be laid on the cost to
make the mass deployment of the 5G networks a reality. With a
greater push for greener technologies each year, reduced power
consumption will also be a primary objective of 5G. The most
important and highly critical objective of all is the “capacity”
as it directly relates to the growing user demand for faster and
higher data rates. The general consensus among different
research groups working on the futuristic 5G technologies is a
peak data rate of 10 Gb/s for static users, 1 Gb/s for mobility
users and no less than 100 Mb/s in urban areas. The technology
being investigated to meet these high data rate targets is the
massive MIMO.
III. MASSIVE MIMO
The existing technologies like LTE and LTE-Advanced
already use MIMO, where the base station and the user device
have more than one antenna. But, massive MIMO [2] employs
much higher number of antennas that create localized beams
towards each device. These localized beams establish multiple
spatial paths between the base station and the user equipment
such that multiple channels of data can be transmitted
simultaneously. MIMO spatial coding can be used to separate
the channels of data to different users according to their spatial
position and unique channel propagation characteristics of each
transmitter and receiver combination.
Fig. 1. Patch antenna operating at 29 GHz.
Fig. 2. Mobile handset with two 2x2 antenna arrays.
IV. ANTENNA ARRAYS
The current MIMO in 4G LTE technologies uses 2 to 4
antennas for transmitter and receiver, but the massive MIMO
will be using up to 128 antennas. It is possible to synthesize
many separate data paths to individual users with large antenna
arrays, leading to much higher data rates compared to the
present day capacities. The large antenna arrays offers the
ability to generate highly directional beams which can enhance
the signal to noise ratio. With the aid of enhanced
beamforming, it is possible to manage both the near and far
away devices without blocking the signals.
The proposed mmWave spectrum for the 5G presents a
unique opportunity for the antenna engineer to easily
accommodate several antennas (arrays) inside a mobile handset
because of the smaller wavelength. This paper presents one
such example. Fig. 1, shows a patch antenna designed for the
29 GHz 5G frequency band. Two 2x2 antenna arrays are
designed with this patch antenna as the base element two patch
antennas arrays. Fig. 2, shows the two antenna arrays
embedded inside a mobile handset. It is clear from the figure
that the mmWave antenna arrays can easily fit inside a standard
mobile handset (the dimensions shown in the figure reflects the
average size of the present day mobile handset). The antenna
arrays are placed such that the array configurations are
orthogonal to each other. This orthogonal orientation leads to
spatial diversity which in turn results in polarization diversity.
The ability to place multiple antenna arrays inside the mobile
handset also gives the flexibility of operating in several
configurations, like, exciting each arrays at a time or exciting
both the arrays at the same time. Fig. 3, shows the arrays
pattern when both the arrays are excited at the same time. The
results for the other configurations are omitted for brevity.
Simulation results presented in this paper are performed with
the commercial 3D electromagnetic simulations software,
Altair FEKO [3].
V. CONCLUSION
Researchers around the world are working on developing
new technologies to meet the increasing demand for higher
data rater. These technologies will also lay the foundation the
next generation of mobile network standards, 5G. A solution to
the higher data rate demand is proposed through the concept of
massive MIMO. The proposed mmWave frequency bands
which already regulated by FCC offers the ability to
incorporate several antennas arrays within a small mobile
handset.
Fig. 3. Radiation pattern when both the antenna arrays are excited.
REFERENCES
[1] Understanding 5G, a white paper from Anritsu
(http://smainc.net/news/anritsu-new-white-paper-understanding-5g/).
[2] M. Nakatsugawa, “R&D Efforts on Wireless Access Systems Toward
Realization of Future Networks,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 12, No.
3, Mar 2014.
[3] FEKO Suite 7.0, Altair Engineering, Inc.,
(http://www.altairhyperworks.com/FEKO), 2015.