Highly Directional Steerable Antennas: High Gain Antennas Supporting User Mobility or Beam Switching for Reconfigurable Backhauling
Modern millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems for large indoor areas and most outdoor scenarios require high gain antennas with beam steering ability to support user mobility or beam switching for reconfigurable backhauling. In this article, two new concepts for the development of highly directional steerable mmWave antennas are proposed and analyzed. The first one is modular antenna array (MAA) technology, which allows the creation of large aperture, high gain adaptive antenna arrays in a cost effective and scalable manner. Two MAA configurations based on the existing phased subarray module are considered and analyzed for mmWave small cell access and backhauling. The second prospective technology that fulfills the required antenna parameters for mmWave smallcell flexible backhauling is the lens array antenna (LAA) The combination of the dielectric lens for aperture increasing with only one subarray module with beam steering capabilities may provide 25 30 dBi total antenna gain with azimuth sector sweeping 45deg.
IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine