Massive MIMO Subarray Converter Sharing for Lower Power
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Solution Overview
Problem
Massive MIMO systems with large numbers of antenna ports require substantial power consumption due to the use of costly analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs), leading to increased capital and operating expenditures.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a MIMO system with an antenna array organized into subarrays, each coupled to an analog multiplexer and a shared ADC or DAC, reducing the number of converters needed while maintaining high throughput performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If each antenna element is equipped with its own ADC/DAC in a digital beamforming architecture, then high throughput performance is achieved, but power consumption and cost increase substantially
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple antenna elements are grouped into subarrays, where each subarray shares a common ADC or DAC. This merging approach reduces the total number of converters from N (one per antenna) to M (one per subarray), directly reducing power consumption while maintaining the ability to process signals from all antenna elements for high throughput performance
Solution Approach 2:
The antenna array is segmented into multiple subarrays, each handled by a dedicated shared ADC/DAC. This segmentation allows the system to maintain fine-grained control over individual antenna elements while using coarser-grained resource sharing at the converter level, balancing performance and power efficiency
2Productivity
If each antenna element is equipped with its own ADC/DAC in a digital beamforming architecture, then high throughput performance is achieved, but capital expenditure and operating expenditure increase
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple antenna elements are grouped into subarrays, where each subarray shares a common ADC or DAC. This merging approach reduces the total number of converters from N (one per antenna) to M (one per subarray), directly reducing capital expenditure and operating expenditure while maintaining the ability to process signals from all antenna elements for high throughput performance
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for power reduction for massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radios. A MIMO communication device includes an array of antenna elements including a plurality of subarrays of the antenna elements, radio frequency (RF) front end circuits coupled to the antenna elements, respectively, and an array of signal conversion circuits coupled to the array of the antenna elements, the signal conversion circuits coupled to the plurality of subarrays, respectively, such that each of the plurality of subarrays is coupled to one of the signal conversion circuits.