6G Wireless Communications: From Far-Field Beam Steering to Near-Field Beam Focusing
By Haiyang Zhang, Nir Shlezinger, Francesco Guidi, Davide Dardari, Yonina C. Eldar. IEEE Communications Magazine, 2022
307 citations recorded by the source corpus.
6G networks will be required to support higher data rates, improved energy efficiency, lower latency, and more diverse users compared with 5G systems. To meet these requirements, electrically extremely large-scale antenna arrays are envisioned to be key physical-layer technologies. As a consequence, it is expected that some portion of future 6G wireless communications may take place in the radiating near-field (Fresnel) region, in addition to the far-field operation as in current wireless technologies. In this article, we discuss the opportunities and challenges that arise in radiating near-field communications. We begin by discussing the key physical characteristics of near-field communications, where the standard plane-wave propagation assumption no longer holds, and clarifying its implication on the modelling of wireless channels. Then, we elaborate on the ability to leverage spherical wavefronts via beam focusing, highlighting its advantages for 6G systems. We point out several appealing application scenarios which, with proper design, can benefit from near-field operation, including interference mitigation in multi-user communications, accurate localization and focused sensing, as well as wireless power transfer with minimal energy pollution. We conclude by discussing some of the design challenges and research directions that are yet to be explored to fully harness the potential of near-field operation.
Subfields: Aerospace Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/690cd7ab0ca6b6bd611a964d3b322aeb2f5c0e11
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In Aerospace Engineering
- Yuanwei Liu
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- Dusist Niyato
- Merouane Debbah
- H. Vincent Poor
- Shuguang Cui
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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- Yuanwei Liu
- Robert Schober
- H. Vincent Poor
- Xidong Mu
- Merouane Debbah
- Khaled Ben Letaief
- Dusist Niyato
- Shuguang Cui
Citations in the corpus
- The Integrated Sensing and Communication Revolution for 6G: Vision, Techniques, and Applications (2024, unknown): “It not only allows for the control of multiuser interference (interference shaping) in terms of angular direction, similar to traditional beam steering but also provides control over interference in terms of distance, thus allowing the discrimination of users seen with the same angle of view [240].”
- A Tutorial on Extremely Large-Scale MIMO for 6G: Fundamentals, Signal Processing, and Applications (2023, methodology): “The authors in [119] investigated the XL-MIMO system operated in the THz band with 300 GHz carrier frequency.”
- A Tutorial on Near-Field XL-MIMO Communications Toward 6G (2023, unknown): “[65] Physical characteristics & applications Introduce the near-field beam focusing of XL-MIMO and discuss the appealing applications of multi-user communications, accurate localization and sensing, and WPT. [66] System structure & applications Provide an overview of near-field WPT in future Internet…”
- Near-Field Communications: A Tutorial Review (2023, background): “authors of [22] studied the difference between far-field beamsteering and near-field beamfocusing.”