Performance Assessment of Irregular Array Configurations for Beyond 100-GHz Multi-User MIMO Systems

A comparison of thinned and clustered array configurations is presented where the former is generated by deactivating the radiating elements permanently while the latter is generated by utilizing a collection of subarrays. The performance of the clustered and thinned arrays is evaluated in the context of multi-user MIMO communications beyond 100 GHz frequencies. An optimization problem is described to find the optimal tiling or cluster configurations, i.e., arrangements of unit elements where the tradeoff between spectral efficiency (SE) and sidelobe levels (SLLs) can be tuned. It is shown that clustered arrays achieve higher SE and SLLs compared to their thinned array counterparts in the context of multi-user MIMO.