volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

The much-anticipated year of 5G deployment has lapsed, and yet much research is ongoing on the 5G New Radio (NR) interface. The quality of service and user experience is dependent on a stable and signal strength of the wireless communication link. To serve multiple users per sector accessing dedicated and unique services pose a challenge for passive antenna systems with omnidirectional beams. Smart 5G antenna technology with null forming and beamforming promises to serve mobile users well by offering a reliable wireless communication link. To address this need, we propose a 2 x 2 MIMO antenna capable of electronically forming electromagnetic beams in one direction and nullifying electromagnetic beams in any undesired direction. We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed antenna by evaluating five cases that showed interesting insights, confirming the hypothesis that it is possible to implement beamforming in a 2 x 2 MIMO system with less computing power and minimum number crunching. What is novel and attractive about the proposed antenna are: (a) forming a beam with maximum directivity towards the desired user, while (b) simultaneously producing nulls towards an undesirable transmitter, and (c) a fast electromagnetic tracking module inbuilt into it so that the base station antenna may constantly track and maintain the communication link with the moving wireless transceiver or cell phone. While most wireless mobile systems use two separate software modules for beamforming and tracking the mobile station, the method presented here does electronic beamforming and tracking of the mobile user with a single low memory, computationally fast technique within the range of 10 ms to 19 s.

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Mr. Herman Kunsei

Dr. Kandasamy Pirapaharan

Dr. Paul R. P. Hoole