This white paper illustrates a process to design hybrid beamforming in massive MIMO antenna arrays for 5G, using features available with MATLAB® and Simulink®.
Taking a 64 x 64 element, 66 GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) design as an example, we show a strategy to model antenna arrays and partition beamforming operations between the digital and RF domains, including:
- Specifying an array and visualizing the geometry, 2D and 3D directivity, and grating lobes
- Importing antenna patterns to increase model fidelity
- Mitigating the effects of array element imperfections, element and subarray failures, and mutual coupling
- Designing array architectures and generating RF phase shifts and digital complex weights
- Measuring performance of link-level designs using high-fidelity, RF/digital multidomain simulations
- Modeling multi-user beamforming scenarios
- Assessing tradeoffs between performance, power dissipation, and implementation complexity
