Design and analysis of Maxwell fisheye lens based beamformer

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 22739 - 8
• Main Authors: Abbasi, Muhammad Ali Babar, Ansari, Rafay I., Machado, Gabriel G., Fusco, Vincent F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 23.11.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166/987; 639/766/25; Developmental stages; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Wireless networks
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02058-9

Antenna arrays and multi-antenna systems are essential in beyond 5G wireless networks for providing wireless connectivity, especially in the context of Internet-of-Everything. To facilitate this requirement, beamforming technology is emerging as a key enabling solution for adaptive on-demand wireless coverage. Despite digital beamforming being the primary choice for adaptive wireless coverage, a set of applications rely on pure analogue beamforming approaches, e.g., in point-to-multi point and physical-layer secure communication links. In this work, we present a novel scalable analogue beamforming hardware architecture that is capable of adaptive 2.5-dimensional beam steering and beam shaping to fulfil the coverage requirements. Beamformer hardware comprises of a finite size Maxwell fisheye lens used as a scalable feed network solution for a semi-circular array of monopole antennas. This unique hardware architecture enables a flexibility of using 2 to 8 antenna elements. Beamformer development stages are presented while experimental beam steering and beam shaping results show good agreement with the estimated performance.