Massive MIMO antenna system for 5G base stations with

directive ports and switched beamsteering capabilities

Item Type Article

Authors Al-Tarifi, Monjed A.; Sharawi, Mohammad S.; Shamim, Atif

Citation Al-Tarifi MA, Sharawi MS, Shamim A (2018) Massive MIMO

antenna system for 5G base stations with directive ports and
switched beamsteering capabilities. IET Microwaves, Antennas &
Propagation 12: 1709–1718. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/
iet-map.2018.0005.

DOI 10.1049/iet-map.2018.0005

Publisher Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)

Journal IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation

Download date 25/11/2019 01:21:15

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10754/631627

IET Microwaves Antennas & Propagation

A Massive MIMO Antenna System for 5G ISSN 1751-8644

doi: 0000000000
www.ietdl.org
Base Stations with Directive Ports and
Switched Beamsteering Capabilities
Monjed A. Al-Tarifi1 , Mohammad S. Sharawi1 , Atif Shamim2
1
Electrical Engineering Department, King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, 31261 Saudi Arabia
E-mail: msharawi@kfupm.edu.sa
2
Electrical Engineering Department, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955 Saudi Arabia
E-mail: atif.shamim@kaust.edu.sa

Abstract: A 72 port (288 antennas) triangular shaped massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) antenna system is pre-
sented for 5G base stations. Each side of the antenna system consists of 3 layers with a total size of 44.4×29.6×0.1524 cm3 , and
contains 24 ports. Each port (subarray) consists of 2×2 patches on the top layer, their feeding network with pre-calculated phases
is on the bottom layer and the ground plane is in the middle one. Each subarray (one port) is fed in a way to tilt its beam direction
with respect to others to achieve uncorrelated individual patterns. The antenna system is the first to support two operating modes;
simultaneous individual port operation (i.e.72 port MIMO) and mMIMO array operation (i.e. with beam switching). The design is
fabricated and measured to test its performance. The measured bandwidth is 100 MHz that covers the band from 3.45-3.55 GHz.
The measured gain of a single port equals to 9.41 dBi. The envelop correlation coefficient does not exceed 0.1198. A beam-
steering method to steer the beam of each 24-port side to different locations in the space is presented and applied based on the
non-uniform port patterns (unlike most conventional methods using identical array elements). 13 switched beams are obtained
with center angle coverage up to 34o in elevation with maximum gain of 19.5 dBi.

1 Introduction
The fifth generation (5G) of wireless standard will significantly im-
prove the performance of wireless systems in terms of data rate and
channel capacity. The channel capacity in 5G is expected to be 1000
times its 4G predecessor. This improvement will be achieved by
different technologies, such as; ultra-densification, millimeter wave
(mmWave) systems, advanced modulation and coding and massive
multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) [1].
A MIMO system has multiple antennas at the transmitter and
multiple antennas at the receiver to improve the diversity gain and
channel capacity [2]. In mMIMO, the number of antennas at the base
station side will be very large for higher channel capacities. Also, us-
ing mMIMO will increase energy efficiency and reduce the latency
[3].
There are few works in literature presenting mMIMO antenna
designs. Most of these designs are based on an array mode with
beamforming capability as in [4]-[6]. In [4], 64 RF channels were
designed using basic 4 × 1 subarrays of patches that is designed at
5.8 GHz. The design was fabricated and measured, and it gave 200
MHz bandwidth and a gain of 18 dBi at boresight for the whole
array. Complex phased array beamsteering is applied in the design
presented in [5]. This array consisted of 160 dual polarized patches
on one planar size. The center frequency was 3.7 GHz with 183
MHz bandwidth. The overall size of the array was 60×120 cm2 .
The design presented in [6] consisted of 4×8 subarrays, each with
linear 4 patches. The array covered 450 MHz around 2.6 GHz with
maximum coupling between its ports of -19 dB. The gain for each
subarray was measured to be 10 dB.
Some other works used dual-polarized antennas as in [7]-[10]. In
[7], three layers of 6 sectors are stacked over one another with a ro-
tation. Each sector consisted of 4 subarrays, each with 2×2 patches.
The bandwidth was 160 MHz around 3.7 GHz, with measured gain
of 10.5 dB for the subarray and 16.7 dB for each sector. In [8],
a novel patch is proposed that covered 2.535-2.655 GHz. Six sec-
tors were presented with 4×4 antenna elements in each sector. The
isolation between different ports was 21 dB, and the gain for each
subarray (1×4 patches) was between 11-12.4 dBi. A cross dipole
antenna element is used in [9] to get ±45o polarizations. 32 RF
channels with 64 antenna elements are used along the whole array to
cover a band from 3.6-4.8 GHz with a gain of 26.8 dBi. The design
shown in [10] is done for Ka-band from 31.8-33.46 GHz with a cou-
pling less than -15 dB. A dual-polarized patch was the base antenna
element with 4×8 patches for a sector. mmWave based designs such
as [11]-[13] targeted 28-38 GHz 5G bands.
Few works supported a MIMO configuration by using multi-
modes at each element without an array mode (beamsteering). In
[14], 108 elements were distributed along a 9-faced polyhedron ring
that operated at 2.4 GHz. This was achieved using a modified patch
to get 3 modes per element; the first (BW of 254 MHz) and second
(BW of 238 MHz) modes are with a gain of 6.5 dBi and the third
one (BW of 102 MHz) with 1.21 dBi gain. On the other hand, [15]
modified a sheet to support 4 modes that covered wide band from
6-8.5 GHz along an 11×11 array. The port isolation was better than
20 dB with very low envelop correlation coefficient.
It is clearly seen that most of the previous works were not verified
experimentally, used a single element or 1×4 subarray configura-
tions for individual ports (except [7] that used uniformly fed 2×2),
only had one operating mode (individual port MIMO or beam steer-
ing), did not cover more than 30o in elevation (except [10]) and all
subarrays were with the same radiation pattern shape and direction
thus using well known beam steering algorithms for uniform arrays.
In our recent work [16], we only showed the idea of directive ports
in a 16-port configuration that had low efficiency, was not verified
experimentally or had any beamsteering capability.
In this work, a dual operating mode mMIMO antenna system is
presented. The first mode is an individual port MIMO mode with
low correlation between different ports for high signal-to-noise-ratio
(SNR) environment scenarios (each subarray is operating indepen-
dently and has a beam directed away from its adjacent ones), the
second mode is an array beam switching one for lower SNR scenar-
ios that provides dedicated beams for users. The proposed 72 port
(288 patch elements) mMIMO antenna system is suitable for poten-
tial 5G base stations. The mMIMO antenna system consists of three

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015 1
panels/sides (triangular shape), each having 24 ports. Each port has Top layer
a unique feeding network that provides a tilted beam with respect to (patches)
Via
its adjacent ports to have low envelope correlation coefficient (ECC)
values when operated in individual (MIMO) mode scenarios (i.e.

(0.762 mm)
RO4350b
first mode). Each port consists of a subarray of 2×2 patch elements
with a feed network providing proper phases for fixed beam tilts. The

Middle layer
antenna system operates at 3.5 GHz with 100 MHz measured band-

(ground)
Bottom layer
width. A beamsteering technique is presented and applied for array (feeding)
mode operation (i.e. second mode) on the non-identical (tilted with
respect to one another) port patterns unlike all previous works that
assume identical radiation patterns for all its elements. The algorithm
(a)
is optimized via controlling the complex excitations of each port to
provide switched beams for the 24-ports within a panel/side to com- 74
bine the individual tilted patterns (of each port out of 24) in a unique 28 9
way. The algorithm provides 19.5 dB gain at broadside, and provides
switched beams covering ±34o in elevation (i.e. beam center loca-
tions), thus providing almost ±8o extra center beam coverage from

21.5
14
both sides compared to most recent works.
The rest of the paper organized as follows. In Section II, the

5.35
15.5
design of the antenna system is discussed in details. Section III dis-

74
cusses the measured and simulated results of the design. Section IV
shows the details of the beamsteering algorithm and the results of
applying it on the design. Finally, section V concludes the work. y

2 mMIMO Antenna System Design Details

2.1 Single Port Design x

A single port consists of a subarray of 2×2 patches that is build on (b)

a 3 layer printed circuit board (PCB). The top layer is used for the
linearly polarized patch antennas, which are fed using probe feed- 74
ing through vias that come from the bottom layer. The ground is the
middle layer which acts as the reference for both patch antennas and
the feeding network. The substrates used are RO4350b with 3.5 di-

4.67
electric constant, 0.762 mm thickness and 0.003 loss tangent (@ 2.5 18.625
GHz). Figure 1(a) shows the stackup of the board design. Fig. 1(b)

5.535
shows the top layer of the single port subarray. It consists of 2×2

12.8
patch antennas designed at 3.5 GHz. They are excited with uniform
74

amplitude and different phase excitations to tilt the beam towards a
specific direction. The phase difference between the patches comes
from the differences in path length of the microstrip lines that feed
them as shown in Fig. 1(c). The dimensions used here were such
that a beam tilt of the subarray pattern is achieved towards (θ=27,
φ=244). The total size of a single port (subarray) is 74×74×1.524
mm3 . The other three adjacent ports are made of just a rotation of
phase excitations by changing the position of the phase in the feed-
ing network to guarantee a pattern tilt towards an opposite direction
to minimize field correlation. The feeding networks for all ports are
shown in Fig. 3(c). The four basic configurations for adjacent ports
are P1, P2, P5, P6. These 4-configurations with pre-defined tilts are
repeated over the 24-port side. Port 1 had phases (0o , 62o , 74o , 133o )
to tilt the beam towards (θ=29o , φ=295o ), where port 2 had phases of
(62o , 0o , 133o , 74o ) to tilt the beam towards (θ=27o , φ=244o ). Port 3
phases were (62o , 133o , 0o , 74o ) giving a maximum gain at (θ=28o ,
φ=63o ), while port 4 had phase excitations of (133o , 62o , 74o , 0o )
tilting the beam towards (θ=29o , φ=116o ). The maximum gain for
all sub-arrays (ports) were around 8.5 dBi. Fig. 2(a)-(d) show the
simulated 3D radiation pattern for the four basic ports. The tilt of
the beam by each port can be easily observed and is important for
the MIMO operation showing uncorrelated beams as well as in the
beamsteering method applied afterwards.
2.2 72 ports mMIMO antenna system
The triangular 72 port (288 element) mMIMO antenna system is
shown in Fig. 3(a). The triangular shape was chosen due to high
fabrication costs and limited project budget. Thus a hexagonal (144
ports with 576 antennas) array can be easily made if budget is not
limited. Each side of the triangular array consists of six copies of the
four basic subarrays. The front view of a single side consists of 6×4
ports shown in Fig. 3(b). The spacing between adjacent ports is 74
16.65
0.7
1.5 0.33
y
x
(c)
Fig. 1: (a) Stackup of the board design showing the layers. (b)
2×2 patches (top) for a single port (subarray). (c) Feeding network
(bottom) for a single port (subarray). (All dimensions are in mm)
mm. The distribution is made in a way to create uncorrelated fields
to achieve low ECC values between different ports. The total size
of the board for a single side is 44.4×29.6×0.1524 cm3 . Fig. 3(c)
shows the bottom layer of a single side board. Mini-SMP (PE44489)
based connectors are used at the 24 feeding points (ports).
3 Simulation and Measurements results
The designed array was simulated using CST studio suite and then it
was fabricated and measured to check its performance. The fabrica-
tion was conducted at Printech PCB, UK. Port measurements were
done using an Agilent Fieldfox N9928A VNA, while the radiation
patterns were measured using a Satimo Starlab Anechoic chamber.
A single array side/panel with 24-ports was tested at a time due to
the size and weight limitations of the chamber used. The complex
radiation pattern of each sub-array was measured individually while

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

2
c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015
 Side 3
(Panel 3)

Side 2
(Panel 2)

Subarray 1
(a) (b)

Side 1
(Panel 1)

(a)
(c) (d) 29.6 cm (3.55λo)

Fig. 2: 3D realized gain pattern of the four basic ports shown in Fig.
3(c) which are tilted to (a) θ=29o , φ=295o . (b) θ=27o , φ=244o . (c)
θ=28o , φ=63o . (d) θ=29o , φ=116o . Subarray
No. 1

Subarray
others were terminated. If the complete assembled system with 3- No. 2

44.4 cm (5.33λo)
sides/72-ports is to be tested, a larger chamber can be used. It should
be noted here that if over the air (OTA) testing is to be performed,
then a different measurement setup should be used and the size of
the array should be carefully considered [17], [18]. The fabricated
prototype is shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 4(a) shows the bottom view of
fabricated side, where Fig. 4(b) shows the top one. In Fig. 4(c), the
triangular shaped prototype is shown.
Fig. 4(d) shows the S-parameters measurement setup of the fab-

(0.89λo)
74 mm
ricated board. The simulated and measured reflection coefficients at
each port are shown in Figs. 5(a), (b) and (c). The isolation between y
port 6 (P6 ) and its adjacent ones are shown in Fig. 5(d). The mea-
sured band supported by this array is 3.45-3.55 GHz, which gives
100 MHz bandwidth. A difference of 40 MHz in the covered band x 74 mm
is observed between the simulated and measured results since a dif- (0.89λ)
ferent SMP connector model with a slightly larger ground foot print (b)
was used in the simulation. This is believed to be the same reason
also for observing some noticeable ripples in some of the ports due 29.6 cm (3.55λo)
to the difficulty of having good GND connections for some of the
connectors in addition to the limitations of hand soldering of such
small parts. The maximum coupling between the ports is -14.9 dB P1 P2 P3 P4
in the band of interest. The measured total efficiency of a single port Subarray
reaches 64% (since each port was measured individually). Fig. 6(a) No. 1
shows the pattern measurement setup inside the Satimo Chamber. Subarray
P5 P6 P7 P8
Fig. 6(b) shows the 2D co-polarized simulated and measured radi- No. 2
ation patterns of each port as a function of φ taken at the plane of
44.4 cm (5.33λo)

maximum gain. Remember that the patterns are tilted with respect P9 P10 P11 P12
to one another. It shows a good agreement between simulations and
measurements according to the tilt direction of each port.
To guarantee a MIMO mode operation, the radiation pattern for P13 P14 P15 P16
the ports should be orthogonal or semi-orthogonal to each other.
The main parameter that measures the correlation between differ-
ent ports is the ECC [19]. The ECC was evaluated between adjacent P17 P18 P19 P20
sub-arrays using the obtained complex electric field patterns and
applying the formula, y
P21 P22 P23 P24
RR 2
| ~ ~
4π [F1 (θ, ϕ) ∗ F2 (θ, ϕ)]dΩ|
ρe = R R RR (1) x
~ 2 ~ 2
4π |F1 (θ, ϕ)| dΩ 4π |F2 (θ, ϕ)| dΩ (c)

where F ~i (θ, ϕ) is the field radiation pattern of the antenna when

Fig. 3: (a) Diagram of the triangular 72 ports mMIMO base station
port i is excited and ∗ denotes the Hermitian product. Spatial corre- system. (b) Top view for a single side array side. (c) Bottom layer of
lation taking the channel effects on the other hand can be found from the single side array (removing the upper layers without flipping the
the channel matrix taking the antenna effects into account as show board).
in [17], but performing OTA is beyond the scope of this work. The
maximum ECC that is calculated using the measured 3D field pat-
terns between the sixth subarray and the adjacent subarrays is equal

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015 3
 0 0
x

y -10 -10
S 11 -sim. S 33 -sim.

S ii (dB)
S ii (dB)
S 22 -sim. S 44 -sim.
S 55 -sim. S 77 -sim.
S 66 -sim. S 88 -sim.
-20 S 11 -mes. -20 S 33 -mes.
S 22 -mes. S 44 -mes.
S 55 -mes. S 77 -mes.
S 66 -mes. S 88 -mes.

SubArray 10 -30 -30

3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

SubArray 5 (a) (b)

0

-10 S 17-17 -sim.

S ii (dB)
S 18-18 -sim.

SubArray 1 SubArray 3 S 21-21 -sim.

S 22-22 -sim.

SubArray 2 -20 S 17-17 -mes.

S 18-18 -mes.

(a) S 21-21 -mes.

S 22-22 -mes.

-30
3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4
Frequency (GHz)
(c)
-10
S -sim.
6-1
S -sim.
-20 6-2
S 6-3 -sim.
S 6-5 -sim.
-30 S
6-7
-sim.
S 6-9 -sim.

-40 S 6-10 -sim.

Coupling (dB)
S -sim.
6-11
S -mes.
-50 6-1
S 6-2 -mes.
S -mes.
6-3
-60 S -mes.
6-5
S 6-7 -mes.

-70 S 6-9 -mes.

S 6-10 -mes.
S 6-11 -mes.
-80

-90
3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 4
(b) Frequency (GHz)

(d)

Fig. 5: Simulated and measured reflection coefficient at

the corner ports ((a) {P1,P2,P5,P6}. (b) {P3,P4,P7,P8}. (c)
{P17,P18,P21,P22}. (d) Simulated and measured coupling between
port 6 and the adjacent ones.

to 0.1198, which means that the ports can achieve good MIMO per-
formance. The measured realized gain by each port is found to be
between 6.78-9.41 dBi for different subarrays within the covered
band as shown in Fig. 6(c). While the BW, gain and ECC are MIMO
based parameters, the beamsteering capability of a mMIMO system
requires the assessment of the directed beam HPBW and gain. These
will be evaluated and highlighted in the following sections.
(c)

4 Beamsteering Method

The designed mMIMO system can be operated in two modes; array

(d)
Fig. 4: (a) Bottom view of the fabricated single side prototype. (b)
Top view of the fabricated single side prototype. (c) triangular 72
ports mMIMO system prototype. (d) Measurement setup for port
parameters.
mode (switched beamsteering) as well a MIMO mode (simultaneous
multi-single ports). The individual port operation mode can be used
in good signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) conditions, while array mode
can be used in low SNR conditions or multi-beam configuration to
provide higher gain and dedicated user beams. The challenge in the
array mode is the fact that different ports have different radiation
patterns, unlike all previous works, so, the simple pattern multiplica-
tion principle using the array factor cannot be applied here. Instead,
the pattern of each port is multiplied by a factor of position and
excitation as follows:
M X
N
X
Etot = Amn Emn (θ, φ) (2)
m=1 n=1
where Amn is the excitation of the mnth port, and Emn is the
pattern of that port. (2) gives an approximate result, since it does not
include the coupling effect between the ports. Applying (2) on the
proposed design can be done by taking into consideration that there

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

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c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015
 are four basic patterns form the basic 4 directions that are repeated
along the array (ports P1 , P2 , P5 and P6 ). So, (2) can be written as:

2 X
3
0
X
Etot =
m=1 n=1
ψx ψy
+β(2m−1)(2n−1) }
I(2m−1)(2n−1) expj{(4m−7) 2 +(4n−9) 2 E1
ψ
j{(4m−5) ψ2x +(4n−9) 2y +β(2m)(2n−1) }
+ I(2m)(2n−1) exp E2
ψx ψy
+β(2m−1)(2n) }
+ I(2m−1)(2n) expj{(4m−7) 2 +(4n−7) 2 E3
ψ
j{(4m−5) ψ2x +(4n−7) 2y +β(2m)(2n) }
+ I(2m)(2n) exp E4 )
(3)

where E1 , E2 , E3 and E4 are the four 3D basic patterns of ports

P1 , P2 , P5 and P6 , and ψx and ψy are:

ψx = kdx sin(θ)cos(φ)
(4)
ψx = kdx sin(θ)sin(φ)

where k is the wave number which equals to 2π λ , and λ is the

wavelength at the resonance frequency. dx and dy are the spacings
between subarrays along x and y directions, respectively. Fig. 7(a)
represents the port patterns and their excitations in table form, where
E1 , E2 , E3 and E4 represent the patterns of the basic four subarrays
P1 , P2 , P5 and P6 . Ii and βi are the amplitude and phase excitations
for the ith port Pi , respectively. The line that contains ψx and ψy is
the exponent in (3) without β excitation represents the position of
each subarray with respect to the whole array.
Applying the beamsteering method on a single side (24 ports) of
the proposed antenna with uniform excitations, i.e. unity amplitude
and zero phase for all ports, results in Fig. 7(b) (the measured 3D pat-
tern of each port is used in the algorithm and processed in MATLAB
in all the presented contour plots). It shows a maximum at broadside
direction (at θ=0) with sidelobe level (SLL) equal to 9.22 dB. The
high SLL comes from the large spacing between the ports, the SLL
for each port individually and because of the beam tilts that were
imposed on each single port. We applied the most well known SLL
reduction techniques, but the SLL did not improve that much since
the fixed beams formed at the individual ports were not affected.
Since, the main beam has an elliptical coverage area as shown in
Fig 7(b), its half power beamwidth (HPBW) at φ=0o cut is different
comparing it to the HPBW at φ=90o cut. The non-uniform Dolf-
Chebyshev (D-C) amplitude distribution was used to get a circular
pattern (instead of elliptical) at the broadside direction as shown in
Fig. 7(c) and (d). The values of the D-C excitations {0.2, 0.618, 1,
1, 0.618, 0.2} are calculated for 6 element linear arrays (with SLL=
-40dB condition to minimize their values the most) as outlined in
Chapter 6 in [20] to achieve the beam pattern required after sev-
eral optimization attempts (targeting low SLL) and repeated 4 times
along the planar array.
To control the direction of the beam maximum and be able to steer
it,amplitude excitation remains as is to keep the circular coverage
with the specific SLL (and the constraint of non-identical patterns),
and phase excitations should be changed accordingly. The phase
control is determined by the well known formulas for planar arrays
in [20]:

βx = −kdx sin(θd )cos(φd )

(5)
βy = −kdy sin(θd )sin(φd )

where θd and φd are the desired elevation and azimuth directions

Fig. 6: (a)Radiation pattern measurement setup in Satimo Cham-
of the beam maximum. A switched beam is applied to cover 12
ber. (b) 2D radiation patterns at elevation angle around θ=25o of the
different areas (other than broadside) down to θ = ±34o with 14o
beams for the 24 ports. (c) Measured maximum gain at the 24 ports.
HPBW along θ direction. Fig. 8 shows some cases for steering the
main beam. The HPBW of the beam gets narrower along φ direction

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015 5
 100 80 0
120 60
140 40 -10

-20
160 20
-30
375 375 375 375
180 0
-40
300 300 300 300
200 340 -50
225 225 225 225
150 150 150 150 220 320 -60
75 75 75 75
240 300 -70
(a) 0 0 0 0 260 280
(a)
100 80 0
120 60
140 40 -10

-20
160 20
-30
180 0
240 160 80 0 -40
240 160 80 0
200 340 -50
240 160 80 0
240 160 80 0 220 320 -60
240 160 80 0 240 300 -70
240 160 80 0 260 280

(b)

100 80 0
(b) 120 60
140 40 -10

-20
160 20
-30
180 0
400 480 560 640 -40
320 400 480 560
200 340 -50
240 320 400 480
160 240 320 400 220 320 -60
80 320 240 160
240 300 -70
0 80 160 240 260 280
(c)
(c)
100 80 0
120 60
100 80 0
140 40 -10 120 60
-20 140 40 -5
160 20
-30 160 20 -10
180 0
-40
180 0 -15
200 340 -50

-60 200 340 -20

220 320
240 300 -70 220 320 -25
260 280
240 300
(d) 260 280
(d)
Fig. 8: Three different cases for steering the beam towards (a) θ=12,
φ=268, (b) θ=14, φ=2, (c) θ=20, φ=226. (d) Normalized 3D con-
tour patterns of the array with D-C amplitude excitation and different
Fig. 7: (a)Symbolic port patterns with the excitation at each one. (b) phase excitations, all steered 12 cases combined (without broadside
Normalized 3D contour pattern of the array with uniform excitation. case).
(c) D-C excitation table of the 24 ports, (d) Normalized 3D contour
pattern of the array with D-C excitation.

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

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c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015
by increasing the elevation tilt angle from 15o at broadside direction two modes of operation, utilized non-identical sub-array beams, pro-
to 23o at θ=34o for the maximum case. On the other hand, the re- vided a complete multi-sector fabricated array and provided good
alized gain at the main beam decreases by increasing the tilt angle elevation angle scanning which are all features of the proposed
from 19.5 dB at broadside to 12.5 dB at the θ=34o tilt case. design for 5G enabled base-station m-MIMO antenna systems.
Fig. 8(d) shows all the covered areas by the proposed array. The
yellow spots show the covered areas in terms of HPBW. Table 1
show the differences between 10 cases of excitations to cover 12 5 Conclusion
steered switched beams in terms of Gain, HPBW and SLL. The SLL
is decreasing by the increasing of tilt angle (θ) from 9.22-5.91 dB. In this work, a 72 port triangular based Massive MIMO antenna
The realized gain also decreased by increasing the tilt angle from system is presented for future base stations. It is based on linearly
19.5 dBi to 12.5 dBi. polarized patch antennas. Two modes of operation are supported;
individual mMIMO and beam switching. Each 2×2 patches (one
port/subarray) is excited in a way to tilt their beam. The tilts at ev-
Table 1 Comparison between different coverage areas cases. ery port/subarray are made to achieve low correlation between them.
Case No. θo , φo HPBW (θ) HPBW (φ) SLL (dB) Gain (dBi) 24 subarrays are placed on a single panel (side), that is one of three
Broadside 0 o , 0o ±7.5o ±7.5o 9.22 19.5
Case No. 1 12o , 268o 6o -19.5o 236o -306o 7.2 19.3
within the triangular base station antenna system. The three panels
Case No. 2 14o , 92o 6.5o -19.5o 61o -120o 9.07 19.3 are fabricated and measured. The minimum measured bandwidth is
Case No. 3 14o , 2o 6.5o -21.5o 334o -28o 8.38 19 100 MHz. The maximum measured gain by a single subarray is 9.41
Case No. 4 14o , 180o 6o -21.5o 150o -208o 5.91 19 dBi, with measured efficiency of 64%. The maximum ECC between
Case No. 5 20o , 226o 12o -26.5o 205o -246o 6.84 18.3 the ports was 0.1192.
Case No. 6 20o , 132o 12o -26.5o 111o -154o 5.94 18.4
Case No. 7 20o , 44o 12.5o -28o 24o -65o 7.66 18.4
A switched beam method is introduced to operate the mMIMO
Case No. 8 20o , 318o 12.5o -28o 298o -336o 6.9 18.4 system in beam switching array mode. The algorithm is used to cover
32o , 0o 23.5o -42o 346o -14o specific spots in covered space and combines the nonidentical indi-
Case No. 9 6.66 12.5
32o , 180o 25o -40o 168o -191o vidual patterns via specific feed excitations (unlike other methods
34o , 90o 26o -40o 77o -104o that assume identical patterns from different ports). 13 beams (in-
Case No. 10 6.4 17
34o , 268o 28o -39o 257o -280o
cluding broadside) are shown that cover from broadside down to 34o
in elevation (center beam locations). The gain dropped down from
19.5 dBi at broadside direction to 12.5 dBi at the beam towards the
The beams at the same elevation angle has different characteris- last beam tilt angle. The HPBW along φ direction (azimuth plane)
tics in terms of SLL and gain due to asymmetry of the array since also decreased from 70o at the first beam tilt (towards θ=12o ) to 23o
it is a rectangular one not a square array. The triangular fabricated at the last beam tilt angle (towards θ=34o ). The SLL deviates be-
system faces another issue about the coverage of the whole 360o in tween 5.91-9.22 dB for the various cases due to the non-identical
elevation angle since each side can cover up to θ=42o , so, the three element patterns.
sides design can cover 3×2×42o which equals to 252o . This means
that there are blind area that cannot be covered when operating in
switch beamsteering mode system. We can overcome this problem 6 Acknowledgements
by utilizing a hexagonal shape base station antenna system.
Table 2 shows a detailed comparison between the proposed work This work was supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research
and previous ones in terms of all performance metrics of bands cov- (DSR) at KFUPM under project no. KAUST-002. The authors would
ered, size, etc. It is clear that none of the previous works supported like to thank Dr. Kirill Klionovski at KAUST for helping in the
radiation pattern measurements.

Table 2 Literature review summary.

Reference Band MIMO Single element Max. Max. Geometry Single sector size Bandwidth Max. Prototype?
coverage order (RF type Gain Gain (MHz) beam tilt
ports) (single (single
port) panel)
[14] 2.4 GHz 9×12 multimode 6.5 dBi - Nonagon 7.5cm ×25.5cm <254 - No
patch
[6] 2.6 GHz 6×32 1×4 patches 10 dBi - Hexagonal - 198 30o No
[8] 2.6 GHz 6×4 1×4 patches 9.2 dBi 11-12.4 Hexagonal - 120 - No
dBi
[5] 3.7 GHz 100 (single dual polarized - - planar 60cm ×120cm 138 - Yes
panel) patch
[7] 3.7 GHz 3×6×8 2×2 patches 10.5 dB 16.7 dBi 3× Hexago- 32.4cm ×8.6cm 160 - Yes
nal
[9] 3.6-4.8 GHz 64 (single crossed- - 26.8 dBi - - 1200 - No
panel) polarized
dipoles
[4] 5.8 GHz 64 (single 1×4 patches 11 dB 18 dBi Hexagonal 256cm ×21.5cm 200 30o Yes
panel)
[15] 6-8.5 GHz 121 (single four mode - - - 70cm ×70cm 2500 - Yes
panel) modified sheet
o
[12] 28 GHz 6×48 horn 9.47 dBi 26.28 Hexagonal 11.66cm - 30 No
dBi ×6.81cm
[13] 28, 38 GHz 12×8 elliptical patch 12.07, - 12 sectors 20mm ×13mm - - No
13.46
dBi
[10] 32 GHz 32 (single dual polarized ∼16 dB - - 23.22mm 1660 47o No
panel) patch ×44.58mm
[11] 38 GHz 36×16 Antipodal lin- 14.5 dBi 25.6 36 sectors - 10000 - No
early tapered
slot
Proposed 3.6 3×24 2×2 patches 8.5 dBi 19.5 dBi Triangular 44.4cm ×29.6cm 100 34o Yes
design (can be
hexagonal)

IET Microwaves Antennas Prop., pp. 1–8

c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015 7
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c The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015