Efficient Cell-Specific Beamforming for Large Antenna Arrays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel phase-only beamforming method for large antenna arrays that achieves broad, flat beams with high power efficiency, leveraging polyphase Golay sequences and a modified optimization algorithm.

Contribution

It presents a new framework connecting dual-polarized beamforming with Golay sequences, introduces $$-complementarity for array size flexibility, and develops MGDA for arbitrary array dimensions.

Findings

Outperforms existing beam-broadening methods in simulations.

Enables efficient broad beam design for large arrays.

Provides a scalable approach for 2D array configurations.

Abstract

We propose an efficient method for designing broad beams with spatially flat array factor and efficient power utilization for cell-specific coverage in communication systems equipped with large antenna arrays. To ensure full power efficiency, the method is restricted to phase-only weight manipulations. Our framework is based on the discovered connection between dual-polarized beamforming and polyphase Golay sequences. Exploiting this connection, we propose several methods for array expansion from smaller to larger sizes, while preserving the radiation pattern. In addition, to fill the gaps in the feasible array sizes, we introduce the concept of $\epsilon$-complementarity that relaxes the requirement on zero side lobes of the sum aperiodic autocorrelation function of a sequence pair. Furthermore, we develop a modified Great Deluge algorithm (MGDA) that finds $\epsilon$-complementary pairs of arbitrary length, and hence enables broad beamforming for arbitrarily-sized uniform linear arrays. We also discuss the extension of this approach to two-dimensional uniform rectangular arrays. Our numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach with respect to existing beam-broadening methods.