Low-Cost Architectures for Future MIMO Systems

Abstract

Massive multiple-input multiple-output is a promising technique for the next generation of wireless communication systems which addresses most of the critical challenges associated with concurrent relaying systems, such as digital signal processing complexity, long processing delay,
and low latency wireless communications. However, the deployment of conventional fully digital beamforming methods, dedicates one radio frequency (RF) chain to each antenna, is not viable enough due to the high fabrication/implementation cost and power consumption. In this thesis,
we envision to address this critical issue by reducing the number of RF chains in a viable analog/digital configuration paradigm which is usually referred to hybrid structure.

From another viewpoint, the development of fifth generation enabling technologies brings new challenges to the design of power amplifiers (PAs). In particular, there is a strong demand for low-cost, nonlinear PAs which, however, introduce nonlinear distortions. On the other hand, contemporary expensive PAs show great power efficiency in their nonlinear region. Inspired by this trade-off between nonlinearity distortions and efficiency, finding an optimal operating point is highly desirable, and this is the second key contribution of this thesis.

Date of Award	12 Sept 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Michalis Matthaiou (Supervisor) & Trung Q. Duong (Supervisor)