Beamforming Intro
April 9, 2018
Beamforming is a traffic-signaling system for cellular base stations that identifies the most efficient data-delivery route to a particular user, and it reduces interference for nearby users in the process. Depending on the situation and the technology, there are several ways to implement it in 5G networks.
Primarily there are 3 types of beamforming, we will briefly cover each in this post and later look in detail about Hybrid Beamforming techniques which is used in 5G NR wireless system.
Beamforming is used in full range of applications like 1. Low Altitude Radar. 2. Digital Communications (5G NR, WiFi, 4G LTE with FD MIMO) 3. Oil Spill detection in the ocean from Sattelite. 4. Weather Radar. 5. And many more
Phased Array
The Beam is formed by an array of Antenna elements and the phase difference between each element will dictate the direction of the beam. By controlling the phase on each element of the antenna array we can create more complex beams formation.
Analog Beamforming
Analog Beamforming is one of the least power-hungry beam formations but does not provide us with the flexibility to control the beams.
Digital Beamforming
Digital Beamforming techniques are one of the most flexible beamforming systems and beams can be controlled digitally. However, the power consumption of this kind of a system is also huge. Considering our Mobile Phones with the limited power we can have only Digital beamforming system in digital communications.