Mitsubishi Electric announced the development of a compact massive-element antenna and RF module that deliver 800 MHz bandwidth and wide-angle beamforming and target 28 GHz communications in 5G radio base stations.
Mitsubishi Electric intends to verify the module’s performance for applications in high-speed, large-capacity communication systems prior to commercialisation of the technology. The company will present the solution at the Brooklyn 5G Summit organised by Nokia and NYU Wireless in New York City.
Mitsubishi Electric cited key features of the solution including:
1. Wideband, high-frequency circuitry designed to support communication over a wide 800 MHz bandwidth.
2. Beam control technology combined with a proprietary massive 256-element antenna and RF device, enabling wide-angle beam forming at ±45 degrees horizontally to aid expanded area coverage.
3. Efficient integration of RF device to enable a compact solution.
The company noted that 5G is expected to deliver transmission at up to 20 Gbit/s, compared with 3 Gbit/s for 4G, leveraging key technologies including MIMO, which uses high frequency bands to enable wide bandwidth and spatially multiplexes multiple signals at the same time within the same frequency while also compensating for large propagation loss in higher frequencies employing multi-element antennas. The new antenna and RF module for 5G base stations is designed for massive MIMO applications.
Development of the Mitsubishi Electric solution was supported by ‘The research and development project for realisation of the fifth generation mobile communications system’, commissioned by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
