Multi-Beam Antenna arrays (MBA)

Themes: XG - Next Generation Sensing and Communication

Wireless communications will soon rely on the possibility to transmit and receive multiple data streams through directive beams connecting the base station with different users. With the advent of 5G communications and the planning for future 6G networks, antennas will focus the radiation in smaller angular regions with the aim to improve the energy and spectral efficiency, while reducing interference levels.
In such a communication scenario, base stations will be equipped with phased array antennas serving several distributed users simultaneously by means of multiple adaptively steered beams. Thus, multibeam antennas are regarded as a key technology for enabling massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and high speed mobile networks.
In this project, we investigate ultra wideband radiating arrays that support multiple simultaneous beams. When more and more frequency bands will be used for different services, having a single narrowband antenna for each sub-band will become unfeasible for cost and space occupation. For this reason, the use of wideband arrays that can cover simultaneously multiple bands will become increasingly important.