5G antennas will “follow” the movements of users

St. Petersburg scientists proposed original solutions for fifth generation telecommunications systems

The antenna for a faster and more powerful Internet – 5G is being created by scientists from the St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University “LETI”. It automatically adapts to external conditions in conditions of high-speed information transfer, such as external interference, changes in the number of devices, their remoteness, movement, that is, the movement of people using the new communication standard.

The fifth generation mobile communication technology began to be mastered in the world not so long ago – in 2019. It is assumed that it will become necessary with the advent of unmanned vehicles, which must receive signals from navigation devices and transmit information over the network in a fraction of a second! At the moment, some countries are already actively exploiting 5G, but in Russia, the introduction of this technology into people’s lives is at the preparation stage. This is where the need for new devices with the highest throughput is brewing. Since 5G differs from 4G in radio frequency and bandwidth, moreover, the high-frequency signal of the fifth generation network is more attenuated in the air, unlike 4G, which spreads from the tower in all directions at once, it must be pointwise emitted to receiver devices. At the same time, it should be taken into account that there will be more and more devices connected to the 5G network and they will be mobile (for example, unmanned vehicles). In other words, fundamentally new systems for transmitting such a signal are required.

As MK was told at LETI, here, at the Department of Microradioelectronics and Technology of Radio Equipment, they are working on a system that will allow sending a 5G signal with high quality due to automatic adjustment of antenna parameters depending on external conditions: the number of users, their movement, distance from the emitter.

A feature of the system is in the hybrid antenna, which consists of small “micro-emitters” that can send several signals in different directions. Then the phone will be able to stably remain connected to the network, regardless of how the user moves with it, where he is: “The created sample is a compact antenna array, which consists of elementary cells. Each cell is, in fact, a separate antenna, and the antenna array combines these elements. A control element, a semiconductor element, is built into the antenna array itself in order to change its radiating characteristics. The change in its state is controlled by a separate control board,” says Pavel Turalchuk, Associate Professor of the MIT Department.

The device was developed with the support of the Russian Science Foundation. In the near future, university employees plan to conduct further testing and improvement of their device. In particular, they must resolve the issue of the interaction of narrowly targeted communication channels.

Also, scientists will have to finalize the design of the device so that in the near future we can safely use a stable 5G connection, which is designed to make everyday use of the Internet much more convenient.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28857 dated August 30, 2022

Newspaper headline:
5g antennas will monitor the movements of users