Beamforming in Millimeter Wave Systems: Prototyping and Measurement Results

TL;DR

This paper presents a detailed design and implementation of a mmWave beamforming prototype using 60 GHz phased arrays and USRP controllers, demonstrating practical beamforming gains for future communication systems.

Contribution

It introduces a reproducible prototype design for mmWave beamforming using digital control and phased arrays, advancing practical demonstration capabilities.

Findings

Prototype successfully demonstrates beamforming gains in practice.

Design is easily reproducible for future mmWave research.

Utilizes 60 GHz phased arrays with software-controlled analog front-end.

Abstract

Demonstrating the feasibility of large antenna array beamforming is essential for realizing mmWave communication systems. This is due to the dependency of these systems on the large array beamforming gains to provide sufficient received signal power. In this paper, the design of a proof-of-concept prototype that demonstrates these gains in practice is explained in detail. We develop a mmWave system with digitally controlled analog front-end. The developed prototype uses 60 GHz phased arrays and universal software radio peripheral (USRP) controllers. The software interface of our design is easily reproducible and can be leveraged for future mmWave prototypes and demonstrations.