Near-Field Communications: Shape and Structure Design for Uniform Planar Array

With the flourishing development of sixth-generation wireless networks, the demand of spectrum efficiency rapidly increases, in order to support the demands of high-quality data transmission and connections of massive users. Among various promising technologies, the technology of near-field communications provides a great potential to address such an issue due to the unique spherical-wave channels for electromagnetic (EM) propagation. In this article, multiple-input-single-output (MISO) near-field communications is comprehensively studied to clarify the influences of the shape and structure of uniform planar array (UPA) on the system performance, considering three cases with uniform linear array (ULA), rectangular UPA, and circular UPA. In particular, we reveal the properties of rapid deterioration for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) from the reduced projection aperture in near-field communications and investigate the single spherical crown antenna design and spherical crown antenna array design in order to address this issue. Moreover, we also characterize the role of antenna projection aperture in detail, and theoretically analyze the shape of UPA, yielding the corresponding exact closed-form expressions for SNR and outage probability (OP). Based on these above analytical results, we find out that adjusting the spacing between adjacent antennas to control the relative angle between user and selected antennas is an efficient way to improve the projection aperture of antenna and SNR. Simulation results are shown to well match analytical results, which validate the correctness of our analysis, clarifying that our proposed designs outperform the conventional works and illustrating a better stability for angle variations.