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

该ECR国际合作基金旨在建立一个国际网络和研究中心，以及新兴的6 G非地面网络中智能阵列有源集成天线的开创性研究，以实现和推动万物互联和无处不在的新电信时代。关于B5 G（5G以后）和6 G，仍然有相当多的挑战等待解决。毫米波系统的功率效率是一个重要的问题，毫米波有源天线系统也是如此。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，mmW有源天线系统将存在巨大的市场和需求，特别是对于需要至少64个天线元件（8 × 8阵列）的大规模MIMO系统。然而，目前市场上的功率放大器仅提供约22%的功率附加效率，导致大量能量浪费，如热量，这也会破坏和缩短设备的工作寿命。 因此，本项目致力于提高毫米波阵列天线的功率效率，提出了一种新型的基板集成有源阵列天线，这是在制造，成本和可扩展性方面的巨大优势。将探索基板封装有源天线（AAiSP）的附加技术，以增加6 G服务提供商的应用灵活性。此外，配合EPSRC 2022-2025年关于AI优先使命的战略计划，将开发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玛丽斯克洛多夫斯卡-居里行动项目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互动。该合作项目使PI能够积极与来自美国，法国和荷兰的经验丰富的学者和工程师合作，并以他们为中心，领导PI，他的研究所和英国成为世界一流的人，组织和地方，拥有世界一流的创新，成为世界领导者，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.