Trajectory-adaptive Beam Shaping: Towards Beam-Management-Free Near-field Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces trajectory-adaptive beam shaping (TABS), a novel method for near-field wireless communication that follows user trajectories without real-time beam management, significantly reducing overhead and improving link performance.

Contribution

The paper proposes TABS, a new beam shaping technique inspired by optics, eliminating the need for real-time beam updates in high-frequency wireless systems.

Findings

TABS achieves higher link quality in simulations.

It reduces signaling and computational overhead.

TABS simplifies implementation in dynamic environments.

Abstract

The quest for higher wireless carrier frequencies spanning the millimeter-wave (mmWave) and Terahertz (THz) bands heralds substantial enhancements in data throughput and spectral efficiency for next-generation wireless networks. However, these gains come at the cost of severe path loss and a heightened risk of beam misalignment due to user mobility, especially pronounced in near-field communication. Traditional solutions rely on extremely directional beamforming and frequent beam updates via beam management, but such techniques impose formidable computational and signaling overhead. In response, we propose a novel approach termed trajectory-adaptive beam shaping (TABS) that eliminates the need for real-time beam management by shaping the electromagnetic wavefront to follow the user's predefined trajectory. Drawing inspiration from self-accelerating beams in optics, TABS concentrates energy along pre-defined curved paths corresponding to the user's motion without requiring real-time beam reconfiguration. We further introduce a dedicated quantitative metric to characterize performance under the TABS framework. Comprehensive simulations substantiate the superiority of TABS in terms of link performance, overhead reduction, and implementation complexity.