Effects of Narrow Beam Phased Antenna Arrays over the Radio Channel Metrics, Doppler Power Spectrum, and Coherence Time, in a Context of 5G Frequency Bands

Abstract

With the arrival of 5G wireless communication systems, there has been increased interest in exploring higher frequency bands above 6 GHz, up to millimeter-wave frequencies. Radio wave propagation at these higher frequencies can suffer from substantial Doppler impairments. The linear dependency of Doppler shifts with carrier frequencies make them challenging to use in high-mobility 5G cellular scenarios. Therefore, the Doppler power spectrum (DPS) characteristics and radio channel coherence time (CT) of the received signals are of great importance for 5G wireless systems. In this way, this paper presents the effects of a narrow beam phased antenna array in reducing the DPS (due to user movement) and, simultaneously, increasing the coherence time (CT). Functional and complete descriptive assessments of beamwidths versus the DPS and CT, through different elements and geometries of the phased antenna array, are analyzed. Moreover, in terms of CT and the DPS, better performance on the 5G cellular scenarios was obtained.