Active Integrated Antenna for Intelligent Arrays in 6G Non-Terrestrial Networks

该ECR国际合作基金旨在与新兴的6G非地面网络中用于智能阵列的有源集成天线的开创性研究一起建立一个国际网络和研究中心，以实现和推动万物互联和无处不在连接的新电信时代。对于B5G和6G，仍有相当多的挑战有待解决。毫米波有源天线系统的功率效率是毫米波系统中最重要的问题之一。根据电信公司爱立信的预测，到2030年，5G领域的服务提供商市场将增长到7000亿美元左右。因此，毫米波有源天线系统将有巨大的市场和需求，特别是对于需要至少64个天线单元（8 × 8阵列）的大规模MIMO系统。然而，目前市场上的功率放大器只能提供22%左右的功率附加效率，导致大量的能量浪费，比如热量，这也会破坏和减少设备的使用寿命。因此，本项目致力于提高毫米波阵列天线的功率效率，提出一种新型基片集成有源阵列天线，在制造、成本和可扩展性方面具有很大的优势。将探索衬底封装有源天线（AAiSP）的附加技术，以提高6G服务提供商的应用灵活性。此外，根据EPSRC关于人工智能优先任务的2022-2025战略计划，将开发一种基于机器学习的预编码技术，以优化毫米波非线性阵列天线。该项目整合了两个正在进行的Marie Sklodowska-Curie行动项目ANTERRA和HARMONY，这两个项目都致力于探索直接匹配的功率放大天线和阵列。PI还积极与EurAAP有源阵列天线工作组进行互动。该合作项目使PI能够与来自美国、法国和荷兰的经验丰富的学者和工程师积极合作，并以他们为中心，带领PI、他的研究所和英国成为拥有世界级创新的世界级人才、组织和地方，从而成为世界领先者，这也是EPSRC最新战略计划的愿景。

This ECR international collaboration grant is aiming to build an international network and research hub together with the pioneering research on active integrated antennas for intelligent arrays in the emerging 6G non-terrestrial networks, to realize and boost the new telecommunication era of the internet of everything and the connection of everywhere. Regarding the B5G (5G-beyond) and 6G, there are still quite a number of challenges waiting to be solved. One of the most important issues is the power efficiency of the millimeter-wave (mmW) systems, so as to the mmW active antenna systems. According to the telecommunications company Ericsson's predictions, the market for the service providers in the 5G area will grow to around USD 700 billion by 2030. Thus there will be a huge market and demand of mmW active antenna systems especially for the massive MIMO systems, which requires at least 64 antenna elements (an 8 by 8 array). However, the current power amplifiers on market only offer a power-added efficiency around 22%, leading to significant energy into waste like the heat, which will destroy and reduce the operation life of the devices too. Hence, this project is dedicated to improve the power efficiency of the mmW array antennas by proposing a novel substrate integrated active array antennas, which is of great advantages in terms of manufacturing, cost and scalability. An additional technique of the active antenna in substrate packaging (AAiSP) will be explored to increase the application flexibility for the 6G service providers. Moreover, align with the EPSRC strategy plan 2022-2025 on the priority mission of AI, a machine leaning based precoding technology will be developed to optimize the mmW non-linear array antennas. This project integrates two ongoing Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions projects ANTERRA and HARMONY, both are dedicated to exploring the directly matched power amplified antennas and arrays. The PI also actively interacts with the EurAAP working group of Active Array Antennas. The collaboration project enables the PI actively working with and centered by experienced academics and engineers from the USA, France and Netherlands, leading the PI, his institute and the UK to be the world-class people, organization and place with world-class innovation, so as to be a world leader, which is also the vision of the latest EPSRC strategy plan.