Array thinning for antenna selection in millimeter wave MIMO systems

This paper addresses the problem of designing thinned arrays with minimized side lobe levels for antenna selection in millimeter wave MIMO systems. We propose a new optimization solution based on compressed sensing techniques and convex optimization relaxation which we show to be a heuristic that solves the original binary optimization problem of side lobe level minimization. We compare the proposed method with other approaches from the literature like simulated annealing and genetic algorithms showing the superiority of the method in terms of performance, running time and ease of parameter tuning. The simulation results cover a wide range of dimensions and situations.