3 5G mMIMO and beamforming

Beamforming is one of the primary technologies required for 5G wireless communication systems. 5G ultrawide-band frequencies operate in the sub-6GHz frequency range and mmWave frequency bands. This spectrum of frequencies is susceptible to higher signal attenuation and interference from objects in its path, and mmWave cannot penetrate walls as easily as 4G. Thus, 5G requires beamforming in order to focus power in a specific area to achieve high data rates, especially in dense urban deployments. See Figure 1.

Another benefit of beamforming is maintaining connectivity with mobile targets such as moving vehicles using beamsteering and beamtracking as defined in the 3GPP releases. Beamforming can be either digital, analog or hybrid beamforming architectures. Let’s look at the math behind this technology.