Special Article CollectionAntennas and Propagation for Emerging 5G/6G Communications
Spotlight on selected articles
Selected articles of the Special Article Collection have been highlighted in a video showcasing the presented research. The articles cover areas including antenna design and propagation analysis.
Discover the entire special article collection here.
Our authors’ perspectives
We asked the authors of these selected articles to (i) reflect on how antennas and propagation technologies are enabling the future of connectivity and (ii) highlight the major advancements in 5G/6G Communications brought forward by the proposed research.
Dive into the articles, gain valuable insights on the themes, and find inspiration for your own research.
Machine Learning For Radio Coverage Planning In Urban Canyons
Ankit Gupta, Jinfeng Du, Dmitry Chizhik, Reinaldo A Valenzuela, Mathini Sellathurai
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
Antennas and propagation technologies are key for connectivity as they allow communication on the move, without wires, at distances from sub-centimeters between computer chips to intercontinental and even interplanetary.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
5G/6G communications promise high-speed communications, often using high frequencies, blocked or attenuated by buildings and vegetation. Accurate coverage prediction is essential to place network antennas properly. Propagation through and around vegetation is notoriously hard to model. This work uses machine learning to accurately predict signal coverage using vegetation maps and measurement data to enable 5G/6G deployment in urban areas.
Radio Propagation Modeling in the 5G & Artificial Intelligence Era
Stefanos Bakirtzis, Jiming Chen, Kehai Qiu, Jie Zhang, Ian Wassell
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
Antennas and propagation technologies are integral components towards the establishment of ubiquitous connectivity systems. The design and fabrication of high-performance antennas along with the precise characterization of the emitted signal propagation enable increased data rates, improved coverage, and enhanced reliability. Consequently, these technologies underpin the efficient and seamless interconnection of different components in our increasingly digitized and technology-based society.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
Radio propagation modeling is the cornerstone of wireless communication systems. Our work highlights the unique potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize the foundations of conventional channel modeling techniques, generating high-fidelity radio signal maps in a few milliseconds, and effectively supporting improved network planning strategies, applications with high reliability and time sensitivity requirements, and the expansion of the 5G ecosystem.
“Antennas and propagation technologies are key for connectivity as they allow communication on the move, without wires, at distances from sub-centimeters between computer chips to intercontinental and even interplanetary.”
Design of Electromagnetic Skins with Artificial Intelligence for Smart EM Environments
Giacomo Oliveri, Francesco Zardi, Paolo Rocca, Marco Salucci, and Andrea Massa
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
State-of-the-art antenna and propagation technologies such as Static-Passive Electromagnetic Skins (SP-EMSs) offer unprecedented potentialities in terms of capacity, coverage, and power efficiency. These aspects are fundamental for fulfilling the promises of next-generation mobile networks, which are expected to substantially expand their availability and improve their Quality-of-Service, while also reducing their energy footprint and limiting any upgrade costs.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
The proposed research enables fast and accurate design of the aperiodic, micro-scale structures that compose SP-EMSs. By virtue of these structures, SP-EMSs can collect 5G/6G communication signals and reflect them in the desired direction. This provides a cost-effective way to exploit the propagation environment, resulting in improved coverage and capacity, without increasing the power consumption.
Hand Blockage Models for Millimeter Wave Phones
Vasanthan Raghavan, Sonsay Noimanivone, Sung Kil Rho, Bernie Farin, Patrick Connor, Ricardo A. Motos, Yu-Chin Ou, Kobi Ravid, Mohammad Ali Tassoudji, Ozge H. Koymen, Junyi Li
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
Antennas enable signaling over-the-air allowing mobile connectivity with 5G technologies. The impact of the user holding the phone operating at millimeter wave frequencies is different than that seen at sub-7 GHz frequencies. Opportunistically leveraging the capabilities endowed by antennas at these frequencies allows us to fully realize high spectral efficiencies, high spatial reuse, and interference reduction in millimeter wave systems.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
Hand and body blockage are key impairments in millimeter wave systems. While it has been expected that blockage can lead to significant signal notches in the intended coverage area of antennas, this work shows that this effect is nuanced. Air gaps between fingers and hand holding grips can lead to smaller losses rendering high-rate communications possible even in practical use-cases.
“Next-generation mobile networks are expected to substantially expand their availability and improve their Quality-of-Service, while also reducing their energy footprint and limiting any upgrade costs.”
Measurements for Wireless High Data-Rate Communication in an Aircraft
Tobias Doeker, Johannes M. Eckhardt, and Thomas Kürner
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
Channel measurements and modeling are the basis for a successful communication system design. The measurement campaigns in an aircraft, high-speed train, data center, and vehicular scenario give insights on the propagation and channel characteristics and lay the foundation for realistic, scenario-specific, link- and system level simulations and modeling activities of higher layer protocols.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
Wireless communication at THz frequencies provides extremely high bandwidth that enables high data rates and low latency transmissions several orders of magnitude faster than current wireless technologies. The field of applications ranges from inflight entertainment systems in an aircraft over wireless links in data centers and ultra-fast kiosk downloading to wireless backhaul links.
Learning to generalize recurrent channel features in 6G vehicular systems
Lorenzo Cazzella, Dario Tagliaferri, Marouan Mizmizi, Damiano Badini, Christian Mazzucco, Matteo Matteucci, Umberto Spagnolini
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
The use of massive antenna arrays expected for 6G allows for counteracting the severe path and penetration losses arising from the usage of high frequencies in the millimeter-wave band and above. A massive antenna array allows advanced spatial precoding strategies, necessary to cater to high-mobility vehicular communications systems.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
The proposed research addresses the decomposition of the 6G vehicular channel in orthogonal spatial and temporal modes, reflecting the position-dependent angle and delay patterns. Channel modes represent recurrent features whose generative model can be learned on a reference scenario and suitably generalized to others with no or limited training, with advantages in channel estimation accuracy, pilot reduction and overall capacity.
“The impact of the user holding the phone operating at millimeter wave frequencies is different than that seen at sub-7 GHz frequencies.”
Enhanced Dual-Polarized UWB Massive Antenna Array for 5G Applications
De-Ming Sun, Zhang-Cheng Hao, Wen-Ye Liu, Chen-Yu Ding, Zhang-Cheng Hao
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
Antenna and communication technology innovations not only expanded scope of communication and enhanced signal quality but also played a crucial role in fostering efficient connectivity among smart devices. The evolution of these technologies has ushered us into a new era of connectivity, making data and information exchange more convenient and efficient, thereby bringing unprecedented possibilities to our lives.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
The proposed research introduces a dual-polarized ultrawideband phased array antenna with extensive high polarization isolation and scanning capabilities. It enhances signal coverage for large-scale networks and high-density user scenarios. Its cost-effectiveness and scalability make it a viable solution for future 5G/6G communications networks, laying the foundation for building more reliable and efficient communication infrastructures.
Enhancing 5G Connectivity with Advanced Dual-Polarized Filtering Antenna
Xuekang Liu, Benito Sanz-Izquierdo, Steven Gao, Haiwei Zhang, Wei Hu, Xue-Xia Yang, Josaphat Tetuko Sri Sumantyo
Q1: How are antennas and propagation technologies enabling the future of connectivity?
Antennas and propagation technologies revolutionize connectivity by enabling efficient, wide-coverage wireless communication, essential for next-gen networks.
Q2: What major advancements in 5G/6G Communications are brought forward by the proposed research?
This research introduces novel methods to enhance antenna selectivity and reduce mutual coupling in densely integrated base stations, crucial for 5G/6G communications. It features a dual-polarized antenna with wide impedance bandwidth and superior out-of-band rejection through innovative radiation nulls, addressing the pressing need for efficient signal isolation and bandwidth enhancement in modern telecommunication infrastructures.