Efficient Beamforming Techniques for Millimeter Wave MIMO Systems

Due to the continued evolution of 5G standards, the need for higher rates of data, lower latency network access, and implementations that are more energy efficient have become clear. To enable wireless communications at rates over tens of Gbps, the wide bandwidth of mmWave spectrum can be exploited. Beamforming (or precoding) is used to compensate for the high path loss in the mmWave frequencies. Although the small wavelength of mmWave signals tolerates a large number of antennas being crowded into a small area, the high-power consumption and cost of mixed signal components make it difficult to earmark a separate radio frequency (RF) chain for each antenna. The addition of analog processing to the digital precoding, known as hybrid beamforming (HB), is an efficient solution for massive MIMO systems, which results in a number of active RF chains lower than antennas. This dissertation provides a new and complete set of solutions for HB that approaches the performance of a fully digital beamformer in terms of MIMO multiplexing gains. Multiple hybrid precoding schemes are developed and proposed, taking careful consideration of the complexity and power consumption of the system, appropriately reducing them while keeping the same level of quality of service.

Major Advisor: Huaping Liu
Committee: Eduardo Cotilla-Sanchez
Committee: Bella Bose
Committee: Xiao Fu
GCR: William Warnes