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

该项目的商业潜力在于为人口稠密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。由于无线设备的激增和目前分配给无线通信的频段有限的可用频谱，4G蜂窝和WiFi网络正面临瓶颈。改善数据连接将需要铺设新的物理光纤，由于高成本和投资回报，这变得不切实际。联邦通信委员会已经为移动用户开放了更多毫米波频谱（介于28-70千兆赫之间），以缓解这些问题。该项目将通过在毫米波频率上对空间分离的移动用户进行频率重用，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。有了这种人机交互的新范式，机器学习可以进一步发展。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围绕物联网的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？美国人民的生活产生了重大的经济和广泛的社会影响。这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目提出了一种革命性的架构，该架构将使毫米波无线系统的大规模多用户MIMO技术能够解决频谱短缺问题。毫米波无线前端模块（FEM）可以利用有源波束成形技术为空间多样化的移动用户重用相同的频率，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，将在大型阵列中使用大量模块（1000个），因此在模块级别实现卓越的功率效率至关重要。该项目将研究Doherty功率放大器（PA）架构的一种变体，以实现高效的毫米波发射机。模块间和模块内的变化会干扰精确的波束形成能力。这些变化对形成相干光束的影响将被研究。通过在模块设计中加入足够的冗余，提出了一种校准大型阵列以排除任何模块间变化的新方法。低灵敏度校准误差将实现，同时也试图降低校准时间。提出了一种新的算法，利用新架构实现空间移动用户在5度范围内的精确同步跟踪。

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.