5G Cellular User Equipment: From Theory to Practical Hardware Design

TLDR

Research and development on 5G has grown explosively, with massive MIMO and high‑GHz mmWave bands (28–71 GHz) emerging as key trends, and current work focuses on modulation, coding, spatial processing, spectrum, channel modeling, PoC systems, and other enabling technologies. The study investigates contemporary wireless UE hardware design to uncover critical 5G UE hardware constraints on circuits and systems. Based on that investigation and design‑trade‑off analysis, the authors propose a highly reconfigurable distributed phased‑array MIMO (DPA‑MIMO) architecture. Link‑budget and throughput calculations evaluate the performance of the proposed DPA‑MIMO architecture.

Abstract

Research and development on the next generation wireless systems, namely 5G, has experienced explosive growth in recent years. In the physical layer (PHY), the massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technique and the use of high GHz frequency bands are two promising trends for adoption. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands such as 28 GHz, 38 GHz, 64 GHz, and 71 GHz, which were previously considered not suitable for commercial cellular networks, will play an important role in 5G. Currently, most 5G research deals with the algorithms and implementations of modulation and coding schemes, new spatial signal processing technologies, new spectrum opportunities, channel modeling, 5G proof of concept (PoC) systems, and other system-level enabling technologies. In this paper, we first investigate the contemporary wireless user equipment (UE) hardware design, and unveil the critical 5G UE hardware design constraints on circuits and systems. On top of the said investigation and design trade-off analysis, a new, highly reconfigurable system architecture for 5G cellular user equipment, namely distributed phased arrays based MIMO (DPA-MIMO) is proposed. Finally, the link budget calculation and data throughput numerical results are presented for the evaluation of the proposed architecture.