RF and antenna prototype for large scale antenna system

Large scale antenna system (LSAS) has been widely recognized as one of the key technologies for next generation wireless system (5G) due to its significant performance enhancement in both energy efficiency and system capacity, however, only theoretically so far. Compared with traditional multiple antenna system, there are orders difference in number of RF chains and antenna elements, which introduces more than orders technical challenges in engineering, including cost, circuit power consumption, form factor, etc. UE-type RFIC based RF chain design together with patch antenna design is investigated to solve the problems, with comparative analysis with current bulk RRU/Antenna. Two different architectures, “SmartTile” and “PixelRF/Ant”, based on the design are proposed, followed by a peer-to-peer comparison between these two schemes in terms of synchronization, calibration, interface, etc.