Dynamic antenna clustering along with low RF complexity digital beamforming.

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Signal Processing
• Wireless Communications

Background:

• Digital beamforming (DBF) systems often require high radio frequency (RF) complexity.
• Preserving antenna weights between the aperture and baseband is crucial for efficient DBF.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a digital beamforming technique with reduced RF complexity.
• To enable the preservation of antenna weights between the antenna aperture and digital baseband processing unit.

Main Methods:

• A digital beamforming technique that connects each antenna subarray to a separate RF chain, transmitting one data stream.
• RF chains are configured to maintain subarray antenna element beamforming weights in a time-division multiplexing (TDM) fashion.
• Two dynamic clustering algorithms are introduced: one to identify the number of required RF chains, and another to group antennas within subarrays for a given number of RF chains.

Main Results:

• The proposed method significantly lowers RF complexity compared to full-complexity DBF systems.
• Spectral efficiency is maintained at levels comparable to full-complexity DBF systems.
• RF circuit designers can determine the optimal number of RF chains, digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and associated components.

Conclusions:

• The developed digital beamforming scheme offers a practical solution for reducing RF complexity.
• The technique effectively balances spectral efficiency with reduced hardware requirements.
• This approach provides valuable design insights for RF circuit optimization in beamforming systems.