Technological Advisory Council Antenna Technology Working Group March 26, 2019 1 Antenna Technology Working Group • Chairs: • Dale Hatfield, Univ of Colorado • Greg Lapin, ARRL • Stephen Hayes, Ericsson • Marty Cooper, DynaLLC • FCC Liaisons: • Farooq Khan, PHAZR Inc • Martin Doczkat, OET • Kevin Leddy, Charter Comm • Michael Ha, OET • Michael Marcus, Marcus Spectrum • Bahman Badipour, OET • Hamidreza Memarzadeh, Samsung • Kamran Etemad, WTB • Bob Miller, incNetworks • Participants / Contributors: ▪ Mark Bayliss, VisualLink • Umesh Navsariwala, PCTel ▪ Nomi Bergman, Advance Newhouse • Sven Petersson, Ericsson ▪ Lynn Claudy, NAB • Brennan Price, Echostar ▪ Brian Daly, ATT • Sudhir Ramakrishna, PHAZR Inc ▪ Pierre de Vries, Silicon Flatirons • Dennis Roberson, RAA • Adam Drobot, Open Tech Works • Danilo Erricolo, Univ Illinois Chicago • Jesse Russell, incNetworks • Jeff Foerster, Intel • Harry Skinner, Intel • Bo Goransson, Ericsson • Charlie Zhang, Samsung 2 Antenna Technology Developments This working group was tasked to report on the state of development of antenna technologies and their implications for FCC policies, technical standards, regulatory and technical issues. The task was intended to cover as broad a scope of radio services as feasible as well as fixed and mobile applications. ▪ Multi-element array antennas can dynamically focus signals, enabling new forms of interference and interference avoidance, possibly necessitating new technical standards and rules. ▪ Metamaterials may offer possibilities to produce more efficient antenna elements for devices and arrays at lower cost. 3 Antenna Technology Developments [cont] ▪ Massive MIMO, Distributed MIMO, Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA) and other technologies promise increased spectrum efficiency. ▪ Today’s higher frequencies allow for smaller sizes and more complex antenna designs, acknowledging some trade-offs ▪ Necessity for large numbers of frequency bands presents challenges for cell site and phone designers. ▪ Disguised antennas may facilitate acceptance of dense deployments of small cell antennas; access to poles and street lights in municipalities present special challenges. 4 Antenna Technology Topics Investigated • Array Antennas – Beam forming, electronic steering, and central processing – Reflect Arrays • Metamaterials – Unique material properties promise to greatly reduce antenna sizes at all frequencies – Still in early days • mm-Wave Antenna Technology – Small Cell Antennas – Satellite Antennas 5 Antenna Technology Topics Investigated (cont) • Antenna Modeling Tools • Antennas Incorporating Interference Rejection • Filtering Antennas • Quasi-Optic Antennas for mmWave and THz operation • Other Innovative Antenna Materials – Gas Plasma – Spray-On MXene 6 Metamaterials • Ryan Stevenson, Kymeta Corp – Metamaterial Satellite Antennas with commercial LCD material • Richard Ziolkowski, Univ of Arizona – Metamaterial and Metamaterial-Inspired Antennas for Reduced Size, Directionality, Cloaking, Multi-band antennas, UWB antennas with embedded filtered notches. • Eric Black, Pivotal Commware – Switchable Metamaterials 7 Smart Antennas • Ted Rappaport, NYU • Antonio Forenza, Artemis Networks • Martin Cooper, DynaLLC • Bo Göransson, Ericsson Smart antennas can create a “personal cell” for each device, decreasing interference and increasing frequency reuse, thus improving spectrum utilization. Smart antennas offer differing capabilities at millimeter wave frequencies and sub 6 GHz frequencies because of different radio multipath properties. 8 Electronically Steerable Antennas • David Garood, Phasor • Joe Carey, Trimble • Jim Nevelle, Kathrein USA • Kevin Linehan, Commscope Steerable antennas can be used to create beams, to track satellites, or to decrease the number of “hot spots” by focusing the energy only where it is needed. 9 Testing • Jonas Fridén, Ericsson – OTA Testing - Measurement of adjacent band and spurious emissions for integrated active array antennas • Reza Biazaran, OET Lab – FCC Rules related to antennas • Robert Paxman, Intel – ANSI C63.26 Proposed Total Radiated Power Rules 10 Cellular Base Station Appearance • Michael Marcus, Marcus Spectrum Solutions – The appearance of base station antennas, particularly small cell installations on wooden utility poles, varies widely and can have a marked effect on public resistance to siting such base stations. – State legislation exempting such cell sites from all local design review may decrease carrier incentives for care in design to minimize neighborhood impact. – Reasonable esthetic appearance is a desirable design goal for rapid and continued roll-out of new sites. – Industry-based voluntary oversight of fielded base stations is preferable to any government action. 11 Cellular Base Station Appearance • Michael Hughes and Bo Piekarski, Crown Castle Corp – One cell site company that has illustrated several examples of small cell designs with nice appearances • However, a nice appearance must be balanced against maintainability. – Towers must be easily serviced to maintain life-safety communications. 12 Small Cell Appearance - Bad 13 Small Cell Appearance - Good 14 Compound Antennas Improve Cell Appearance 15 Compound Antennas Improve Cell Appearance 16 Other Antenna Topics • Danilo Erricolo, UIC – Self interference cancelling antennas for full duplex communications • Yahya Rahmat Samii, UCLA – Fractal Antennas • Andy Paff, Universal Plasma – Plasma physics for commercial antenna deployment • Adam Drobot – Survey of antenna modeling methods • Yury Gogotsi, Drexel Univ – MXene Spray-On Antennas • Josep Jornet, SUNY Buffalo – Quasi-Optical Antennas for mmWave and THz 17 FCC Technology Watchlist • MIMO - Effective in improving spectral efficiency and coverage below 6 GHZ. Multi-element arrays are programmed to direct multiple beams simultaneously in increasingly tight patterns as the number of elements is increased. At millimeter wave frequencies MIMO is useful for improving coverage and speed. Expected impact immediate. 18 FCC Technology Watchlist • Spatial Division Multiple Access - SDMA is a variant of MIMO that is effective in improving spectral efficiency and coverage in areas that exhibit multipath (Typically below 6 GHZ). SDMA uses multi-element arrays with local processing at the cell site. The working group was advised that equipment is available that multiplies spectrum capacities by 3 or 4 times. Expected impact immediate. 19 FCC Technology Watchlist • Distributed Antenna MIMO – uses single antennas at multiple cell sites as an array, with processing at a central location to create a “personal cell” area. It can exhibit high spectral efficiency that is not dependent upon multi-path. Specialized applications such as stadium and large event coverage are being explored. Expected impact is for specialized applications. 20 FCC Technology Watchlist • Antenna Analysis and Design – New antenna design tools can, with great precision and flexibility, predict performance of antenna designs. The process of antenna design is being formalized and accelerated in contrast with historical trial- and-error approaches. Expected impact evolving rapidly over the next few years. 21 FCC Technology Watchlist • Filtering Antennas – Antennas that replace the need for external filters or transmitter designs with embedded filters. Simplifies system design. Available in the next few years. 22 FCC Technology Watchlist • Quasi-Optical Antennas – Antennas designed to operate above 500 GHz, up to 10 THz. Highly directional patterns are possible with high gain and suppressed sidelobes. Signal paths have been tested over distances are long as 2 km and sidelobes have been shown to not interfere with receivers in protected passive bands. Commercial use of these frequencies could be practical in the next 5-years. 23 FCC Technology Watchlist • Quasi-Optical Antennas (cont) – Over 40 times the bandwidth is available from 0.275-10 THz than is being used in the rest of the spectrum – At very short wavelengths, lenses and nanomaterial arrays can be used to highly focus the signal beam, minimizing interference to other services. Typical antenna gains are 30 dB with sidelobes as low as -50 dB. 24 FCC Technology Watchlist • Metamaterials – Metamaterials are manmade materials that exhibit properties not present in natural materials. Early research results show promise as a tool for reducing the size of antennas and antenna elements. The science of metamaterials for antennas is limited but evolving. There are antennas in use that already avail themselves of this technology. Although some implementations already exist, this technology is not fully mature. 25 FCC Technology Watchlist • Self-Interference Cancellation for Full Duplex (SIC) – A method that uses a single antenna with a common frequency source for both transmit and receive eliminating the need for duplexers and some filtering. Simultaneous transmit and receive on the same frequency could yield a doubling in spectrum capacity. This technique is in early research stages and practical isolation of receivers and transmitter has yet to be achieved. Possible impact in the 10-year range. 26 FCC Technology Watchlist • Spray-On Antennas – Material called “MXene” is sprayed on various substrates in very thin layers, as little as 1 μm thick. Can be made to be optically transparent and such antennas behave well even when flexed. In early stages of development and should be practical in the 10-year range. 27 Technology Explored but Not on the Watchlist • Fractal antennas – Fractal antennas