Joint Beamforming and Matching for Ultra-Dense Massive Antenna Arrays

TL;DR

This paper presents a physically accurate electromagnetic analysis of ultra-dense patch-antenna arrays with switch-based beamforming, showing they can nearly match digital beamforming gains at lower cost.

Contribution

It introduces a realistic electromagnetic modeling framework for ultra-dense arrays and demonstrates switch-based architectures' potential to achieve high gain efficiently.

Findings

Switch-based beamforming approaches approach digital antenna gain

Physically consistent modeling reveals performance differences from simplified models

Ultra-dense arrays can be cost-effective with proper RF switch design

Abstract

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) offers substantial spectral-efficiency gains, but scaling to very large antenna arrays with conventional all-digital and hybrid beamforming architectures quickly results in excessively high costs and power consumption. Low-cost, switch-based architectures have recently emerged as a potential alternative. However, prior studies rely on simplified models that ignore (among others) antenna coupling, radiation patterns, and matching losses, resulting in inaccurate performance predictions. In this paper, we use a physically consistent electromagnetic modeling framework to analyze an ultra-dense patch-antenna array architecture that performs joint beamforming and matching using networks of inexpensive RF switches. Our results demonstrate that simple, switch-based beamforming architectures can approach the antenna-gain of all-digital solutions at significantly lower cost and complexity.