INITIATE = InNovatIve acTIve integrATEd antennas

Important results from the project

The goal of this project is to improve cost- and energy efficiency of 5G wireless communication transmitters through investigation of novel integrated active antenna concepts. The proposed project targets a complete proof-of-concept of IADAT = Integrated Active Doherty Antenna Transmitter, including in-depth understanding of its fundamentals and experimental verification of its key principles through a small-scale testbed. This also includes suitable packaging and filtering solutions.

Expected long term effects

1: Understanding of antenna-PA integration fundamentals by answering the following questions: Taking the IADAT solution as the starting point, what are the key design parameters and what are fundamental limits when used in MIMO arrays? What are the integration scaling laws? 2: Established multi-disciplinary design flow for deep integration active antennas; an optimum antenna element design. 3: Identified suitable packaging and filtering solutions for Doherty architectures. 4: Experimental demonstration of the IADAT concept

Approach and implementation

The research project is divided into 4 research lines: RL1: Antenna-PA integration fundamentals: 1.1: Fundamental antenna-PA integration limits; and 1.2.: Fundamental limits of integrated antennas in arrays RL2: A multi-disciplinary design flow 2.1: A numerical platform for combined simulations 2.2: Antenna element design RL3: Packaging and filtering 3.1: Practical system-level constraints 3.2.: System-level solutions for IADAT 3.3.: Reference solution for Doherty PA architectures RL4: Experimental testbeds for 4.1: A small scale IADAT 4.2.: Packaging and filtering