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What kind of antennas do 5G communications need?
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2021-09-06 18:00
Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a shift in mobile communications from 1G to 4G LTE. During this time, critical communication technologies are changing, and the amount of information processed has grown exponentially. Antennas are an integral component to achieve this leapfrog improvement.
According to the industry definition, an antenna is a converter that converts a guided wave propagating on a transmission line into an electromagnetic wave propagating in an unbounded medium (usually free space) and vice versa, i.e., emitting or receiving electromagnetic waves. Generally speaking, whether it is a base station or a mobile terminal, the antenna acts as the middleware for sending and receiving signals.
5G is coming, and major operators are also actively deploying 5G equipment. The transmission rate of 5G is ten times faster than that of 4G, which places new demands on the antenna system. In 5G communications, millimeter wave and beamforming technologies are the key to achieving high speeds, but traditional antennas are clearly unable to meet this need.
The following is the interpretation of the future antenna technology of 5G mobile communication by Chen Zhining, a tenured professor at the National University of Singapore and an IEEE Fellow.
Base station antennas have evolved along with network communication, and engineers design different antennas based on network needs. As a result, antenna technology has also evolved over the past few generations of mobile communication technology.
In the 1G era, almost all omnidirectional antennas were used. At that time, the number of users was small and the transfer rate was low. At this point, it's still an analog system.
In the 2G era, we have just entered the cellular era. At this stage, antennas have gradually evolved into directional antennas, with general lobe widths of 60°, 90° and 120°. In the case of 120°, it has three sectors.
In the 2.5G and 3G era, there are many multi-band antennas. Because the system at this time is very complex, such as GSM, CDMA, etc., which needs to coexist, multi-band antennas are an inevitable trend. In order to reduce costs and space, multi-band has become the mainstream at this stage.
MIMO technology increases communication capacity. At this time, the antenna system entered a new era, that is, from the initial single antenna to array antennas and multiple antennas.
Now, however, we need to look at it from a distance. The deployment of 5G has already begun. What role will antenna technology play in 5G, and what impact will 5G have on antenna design? This is something we need to explore.
In the past, antenna design was often very passive: once the system was designed, metrics were provided to customize the antenna. However, the concept of 5G is not yet clear. R&D personnel who do antenna design need to be prepared in advance, provide solutions for 5G communication systems, and even influence the customization and development of 5G standards through new antenna solutions or technologies.
In the future, antennas will have to be designed together with the system, not individually. It can even be said that antennas will become the bottleneck of 5G. If this bottleneck is not broken, the signal processing on the system cannot be realized, so the antenna becomes a 5G mobile communication system. Key technologies. The antenna is not just a radiator, it has the function of filtering, amplification, and suppression of interfering signals. It doesn't require energy to achieve gain, so the antenna is more than just a device.
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