The upcoming new radio access allows ultra-high data rate using millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) frequencies, while it normally suffers from large path loss. To compensate for path loss, phased arrays for both the transmitter and receiver are used. The 5G new radio (NR) three beam management process proceeds as follows: The transmitted beam is first swept in the downlink direction from the remote radio unit (RRU) to the user equipment (UE), and then the uplink beam is aligned to determine which beam direction has the best reception quality, and vice versa. However, this sequential beam management requires that the RX must be able to perform both beam detection and steering across all the reception angles. Moreover, due to the narrow beamwidth of the phased array operation, a “quantum leap” performance improvement of the receiver operating at mm-Wave is required. In this article, a self-steering array beamformer (SSA-BF) receiving system is proposed, which is composed of a home-designed IC package with zero DC power consumption and a 4-element antenna array. We first conduct the measurement without the antenna, and the SSA-BF receiver shows a significant array factor enhancement with negligible SNR degradation over full field-of-view (FoV) (incidence angle = ±90°), <3 ms fast beam alignment time, and it can support enhanced mobile data-rate up to 10 and 7.8 Gb/s with 20x100 MHz carrier aggregation OFDM in back-to-back and over 25-km fiber transmission, respectively. Moreover, a broadside 3-dB beamwidth ±80° and broadband 17-36 GHz antenna is designed for the proposed SSA-BF receiver in a 5G fiber-wireless access. The SSA-BF receiving system with the 1 × 4 antenna array is designed at 28 GHz, and it shows the normalized array gain better than 3- and 6-dB degradation over broad FoV incidence = ± 68° and ± 85°, respectively. Without any external tuning controls, the proposed SSA-BF achieves the state-of-the-art autonomous beamforming for 6 Gb/s 64-QAM signal over 50-cm wireless distance, achieving a substantial array factor improvement. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a high-speed switching SSA-BF receiver in a fiber-wireless integrated radio access as a true enabler for mm-Wave mobile fronthaul applications

中文翻译：

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用于 5G 毫米波光纤无线移动前传的全视场自转向波束成形器

即将到来的新无线电接入允许使用毫米波 (mm-Wave) 频率的超高数据速率，而它通常会遭受较大的路径损耗。为了补偿路径损耗，发射器和接收器都使用相控阵。5G新无线电（NR）三波束管理流程如下：发射波束首先在下行方向从远程无线电单元（RRU）扫频到用户设备（UE），然后对准上行波束确定哪个波束方向的接收质量最好，反之亦然。然而，这种顺序波束管理要求 RX 必须能够在所有接收角度执行波束检测和控制。此外，由于相控阵操作的波束宽度较窄，需要对在毫米波下运行的接收器进行“量子飞跃”性能改进。在本文中，提出了一种自转向阵列波束形成器 (SSA-BF) 接收系统，该系统由自制的零直流功耗 IC 封装和 4 单元天线阵列组成。我们首先在没有天线的情况下进行测量，并且 SSA-BF 接收器显示出显着的阵列因子增强，并且在全视场 (FoV)（入射角 = ±90°）、<3 ms 快速波束对准中 SNR 劣化可忽略不计时间，它可以支持高达 10 Gb/s 和 7.8 Gb/s 的增强移动数据速率，在背对背和超过 25 公里的光纤传输中分​​别使用 20x100 MHz 载波聚合 OFDM。此外，还为 5G 光纤无线接入中提议的 SSA-BF 接收器设计了宽边 3-dB 波束宽度 ±80° 和宽带 17-36 GHz 天线。具有 1 × 4 天线阵列的 SSA-BF 接收系统设计频率为 28 GHz，在宽视场入射角 = ± 68° 和 ± 85° 范围内，它显示归一化阵列增益优于 3-dB 和 6-dB 衰减。在没有任何外部调谐控制的情况下，所提出的 SSA-BF 在 50 厘米无线距离内实现了最先进的 6 Gb/s 64-QAM 信号自主波束成形，实现了显着的阵列因子改进。据作者所知，这是第一次在光纤无线集成无线电接入中展示高速切换 SSA-BF 接收器作为毫米波移动前传应用的真正推动者 在没有任何外部调谐控制的情况下，所提出的 SSA-BF 在 50 厘米无线距离内实现了最先进的 6 Gb/s 64-QAM 信号自主波束成形，实现了显着的阵列因子改进。据作者所知，这是第一次在光纤无线集成无线电接入中展示高速切换 SSA-BF 接收器作为毫米波移动前传应用的真正推动者 在没有任何外部调谐控制的情况下，所提出的 SSA-BF 在 50 厘米无线距离内实现了最先进的 6 Gb/s 64-QAM 信号自主波束成形，实现了显着的阵列因子改进。据作者所知，这是第一次在光纤无线集成无线电接入中展示高速切换 SSA-BF 接收器作为毫米波移动前传应用的真正推动者