Hybrid Beamforming Transmitter Modeling for Millimeter-Wave MIMO Applications

Journal article, 2020

Hybrid digital and analog beamforming is an emerging technique for high-data-rate communication at millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequencies. Experimental evaluation of such techniques is challenging, time-consuming, and costly. This article presents a hardware-oriented modeling method for predicting the performance of an mm-wave hybrid beamforming transmitter. The proposed method considers the effect of active circuit nonlinearity as well as the coupling and mismatch in the antenna array. It also provides a comprehensive prediction of radiation patterns and far-field signal distortions. Furthermore, it predicts the antenna input active impedance, considering the effect of active circuit load-dependent characteristics. The method is experimentally verified by a 29-GHz beamforming subarray module comprising an analog beamforming integrated circuit (IC) and a 2 times 2 subarray microstrip patch antenna. The measurement results present good agreement with the predicted ones for a wide range of beam-steering angles. As a use case of the model, far-field nonlinear distortions for different antenna array configurations are studied. The demonstration shows that the variation of nonlinear distortion versus steering angle depends significantly on the array configuration and beam direction. Moreover, the results illustrate the importance of considering the joint operation of beamforming ICs, antenna array, and linearization in the design of mm-wave beamforming transmitters.