Introduction to mmWave MIMO Technology

 mmWave communication operates in the 30GHz to 300 GHz band where large spectral
bands are available and large bandwidth (~2GHz) support ultra-high data rates.
 Vast spectrum is available in the mmWave band opens new opportunities for high data
rates and dense connectivity in 5G.
 Key application of mmWave MIMO is the Backhaul. Backhaul is challenging in dense
small cells because the cost of optical fibre deployment to all cells can be very high,
mmWave is ideally suite for the backhaul due to its high data rates.
 mmWave can enable high data rate and low latency in vehicle to vehicle and other
remote driving/autonomous vehicles.
 mmWave can be employed in high speed wearable networks such as smart watch, cell
phone, augmented reality glass, virtual reality headsets etc.
 mmWave propagation
o Friss’ law: transmit power Pt and receive power Pr are related as


λ 2
Pr =G t G r
4 πd ( )
Pt

 d is Tx−Rx distance
 λ is the wavelength
 Gt ∧G r thetransmit ∧receive antenna gains .
1
o As Gt ¿ Gr ∝ 2 , the received power increases since more antenna can be
λ
embedded into the same device.
o Using beamforming with large antenna arrays, one can compensate for the high
propagation loss in mmWave. Therefore, beamforming is of fundamental
importance in mmWave system.
 mmWave architecture
o There is a big difference between MIMO architecture at sub-6GHz frequencies
and at mmWave frequencies.
o Conventional MIMO requires a separate RF chain and ADC/DAC for each
antenna.
o In sub 6GHz regime all the signal processing is carried out in the baseband
therefore one can employ only digital signal processing.
o In the mmWave MIMO system, it is not possible to have a separate RF chain for
each antenna due to hardware constraints. High bandwidth causes high sampling
rate and therefore power consumption becomes extremely high.
o This has led to the development of new architecture suited for mmWave MIMO
that signal processing is done in a mix of analog and digital domains, this is
termed as hybrid analog digital signal processing.
 Analog beamforming
o This is simplest approach for mmWave MIMO system, it is used in IEEE
802.11ad
o In the analog beamforming technique, all the antennas are connected to a single
RF chain via phase shifters. RF beamforming is implemented by controlling the
phase shifters.
o In this technique, it is not possible to adjust the ain of the antennas because all
antennas are connected to aa single RF chain and therefore gain is low as
compared to digital beamforming/MRC.
o The drawback of analog beamforming is, it supports only single user and single
symbol transmission therefore it is effectively SISO system even it has multiple
antennas at Tx and Rx.
 Hybrid analog-digital processing
o Increases the number of RF (N ¿¿ RF) ¿chains to Lt at Tx and Lr at Rx.
 Lt =Lr=N RF >1
o Signal processing is divided between RF (analog) and baseband (digital) domains
hence this is hybrid analog and digital processing.
o At Tx: baseband precoding and followed by RF precoding.
o At Rx: RF combining followed by baseband combining.
o This hybrid architecture enables both the spatial multiplexing and MU-MIMO in
mmWave.
o N s is the number of symbols
 N s ≤ N RF
 Analog beamforming is the special case with N s =N RF =1< N r , N t
o Two hybrid structure are possible (i) all antennas can connect to each RF chain
(ii) fully connected architecture
o The array can be divided into subarrays, each subarray connects to an individual
RF chain, this is partial connected architecture.
o Hybrid architecture can employ switches, every switch can be connected to all the
antennas or a subset of antennas.
o The resolution of the ADC can be reduced to one bit which leads to significant
saving in power consumption.