面向大规模天线系统的稀布阵技术研究与评估

Research and evaluation of sparse array for massive MIMO

通过大量天线数服务用户,大规模天线技术可有效提升频谱效率。然而,大规模天线将带来射频链路数量的大幅增加,进而带来成本的急剧提升,所以大规模天线的设计需要综合考虑性能和成本的折中。稀布阵技术通过优化天线阵元位置分布、激励幅度,可实现以更少的天线数逼近均匀阵列的性能,从而带来射频链路数量的降低和成本的控制,取得较好的性价比平衡。介绍了稀布阵关键技术的实现方案,评估分析了稀布阵的链路级性能以及在面向6G的大规模天线系统中应用稀布阵的系统性能。数据分析表明,稀布阵在小幅性能损失的情况下,可以显著降低天线阵元数,节约基站设备成本。

Massive multiple-input multiple-output(mMIMO)enables higher spectrum efficiency by deploying a large number of antenna elements.However,mMIMO will bring a substantial increase in the number of radio frequency(RF)channel,which will result in a sharp increase in cost.Therefore,it is necessary to design mMIMO with comprehensive consideration of the trade-off between the performance and the cost.Sparse array technology can approach the performance of the uniform array with less number of antenna elements by optimizing the position distribution and excitation amplitudes of the antenna elements,thereby reducing the number of RF channels and controlling the cost,and achieving a better cost-effective balance.Both link-level and system-level evaluations and analysis of sparse array based mMIMO that targets for 6G were performed under realistic simulation settings.The results show that with little performance loss,the sparse array based mMIMO can significantly reduce the number of antenna elements and the cost of base station infrastructure.