SBIR Phase I: Large Arrays for 5G MU-MIMO Wireless Access Operating in mm-wave Frequency Bands

SBIR 第一阶段：在毫米波频段运行的 5G MU-MIMO 无线接入大型阵列

• 批准号: 1722199
• 负责人: Sriramkumar Venugopalan
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: RF Pixels, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2018-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1722199&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Large; Arrays; 5G

The commercial potential of this project lies in enabling much needed high wireless data rates and equal quality of service (QoS) to both densely populated areas as well as remote rural areas. 4G cellular and WiFi networks are facing a bottleneck due to proliferation of wireless devices and limited spectrum available in the currently allocated bands for wireless communications. Improving data connectivity would require new physical fiber to be laid out which is becoming impractical due to high costs vs. return on investment. The Federal Communications Commission has opened more spectrum in the mm-wave frequency spectrum (between 28-70 GHz) for mobile users to alleviate some of these issues. This project will enable spectrally efficient communication through frequency reuse for spatially separated mobile users in the mm-wave frequencies. It will also allow low cost dense deployment of 5G cellular base-stations to boost QoS. With this new paradigms in human machine interaction using machine learning can be advanced further. Remote educational programs, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) based learning, online health care and other new services around Internet of Things will be enhanced by better wireless connectivity. These technologies will uplift people?s lives delivering major economic and broad societal impact.This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes a revolutionary architecture that will enable massive multi-user MIMO techniques for mm-wave wireless systems to solve the spectrum scarcity issue. The mm-wave radio front end module (FEM) can reuse the same frequencies for spatially diverse mobile users with active beamforming thus enhancing the capacity of current cellular networks by 100x. A multitude of modules (1000s) will be used in a large array as a part of the mm-wave FEM making it crucial to achieve excellent power efficiency at the module level. This project will investigate a variant of Doherty power amplifier (PA) architecture to achieve highly efficient mm-wave transmitter. Module to module variation and within module variations can disturb accurate beamforming capability. Impact of these variations on forming coherent beams will be studied. A new method to calibrate a large array to tune out any module to module variation will be proposed through sufficient redundancies incorporated in the module design. Low sensitivity to calibration errors will be achieved while also trying to lower the calibration time. A new algorithm that achieves accurate simultaneous tracking of spatial mobile users to within 5-degrees using the new architecture will be proposed.

该项目的商业潜力在于为人口密集地区和偏远农村地区提供急需的高无线数据速率和同等服务质量（QoS）。4G蜂窝和WiFi网络由于无线设备的激增和当前分配的用于无线通信的频带中可用的有限频谱而面临瓶颈。改善数据连接将需要铺设新的物理光纤，由于成本高与投资回报率相比，这变得不切实际。联邦通信委员会已经为移动的用户开放了毫米波频谱（28-70 GHz之间）中的更多频谱，以缓解这些问题中的一些。该项目将通过毫米波频率中空间分离的移动的用户的频率再用实现频谱高效通信。它还将允许5G蜂窝基站的低成本密集部署，以提高QoS。有了这个新的范例，使用机器学习的人机交互可以进一步推进。远程教育项目、基于虚拟和增强现实（VR/AR）的学习、在线医疗保健和其他物联网新服务将通过更好的无线连接得到增强。这些技术会提升人们的生活水平吗？这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目提出了一个革命性的架构，将使大规模多用户MIMO技术的毫米波无线系统，以解决频谱稀缺问题。毫米波无线电前端模块（FEM）可以通过主动波束成形将相同的频率重新用于空间多样的移动的用户，从而将当前蜂窝网络的容量提高100倍。作为毫米波FEM的一部分，大量模块（1000个）将用于大型阵列中，这对于在模块级实现出色的功率效率至关重要。本计画将研究Doherty功率放大器架构的变体，以达成高效率的毫米波发射器。模块间变化和模块内变化可能会干扰精确的波束成形能力。将研究这些变化对形成相干光束的影响。一种新的方法来校准一个大的阵列，以调整出任何模块到模块的变化将提出通过充分的冗余纳入模块设计。将实现对校准误差的低灵敏度，同时还尝试降低校准时间。一个新的算法，实现精确的同时跟踪空间移动的用户在5度内使用新的架构将被提出。