RF Antenna Beam Forming: Focusing and Steering in Near and Far Field

Shun-Ping Chen · Heinz Schmiedel

Mar 2023 · Springer Nature

About this ebook

This book is designed for both the scientific audience, research and development engineers and the university students. The fundamentals of radio frequency antenna beam forming is explained in this book. The principles of beam focusing and beam steering in near field and far field are visualized with 2D and 3D simulations and compared with measurement results. Besides linear and planar antenna arrays, also conformal arrays, i.e. concave and convex antenna arrays, suitable for certain applications, are investigated and presented. Also related applications of radio frequency beam forming like open loop and closed loop large scale antenna arrays or massive MIMO, which is one of the break-through technologies for 5G and future 6G and involves an extremely large number of antenna elements for the multi-user beam forming, as well as thinned antenna arrays with electrically large distances between the antenna elements are discussed.

About the author

Dr. Shun-Ping Chen studied Electrical Engineering with majors in High Frequency Engineering, Telecommunication Technologies and Systems at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany and received his Dr.-Ing. (PhD) Degree with a thesis on Investigation of various Components of the Optoelectronic Integration in 1992 before he worked as Research and Development Engineer and Project Manager at the research center of Fuba, engaged in Microwave Engineering, Antenna Design, Broadband CATV Network Planning and Optimization projects. Since 1995 he became Project Engineer, Project Manager, Group Leader and Head of Department at the German Mobile Network Operator E-Plus, now merged to O2 Telefonica Germany, where he was responsible for Transport Network Planning & Systems, and also proposed and conducted the Fiber Optical SDH/DWDM Backbone Network Project. From 2003 until 2008 he was CTO and IT Director of different German Companies in the fields of Electronics, News Media and Transport Logistics. Since 2008 Dr. Chen is Professor of Communication Technologies and Networks, since 2015 Director of the Institute of Communication Technologies, at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Germany. He was Visiting Research Scientist at T-Labs Wireless Research Department and Technical University Hamburg from August 2011 - March 2012, and Visiting Research Fellow at NOKIA Bell Labs from October 2016 - April 2017. From October 2020 to October 2021 he was visiting scientist at ESA/ESOC.

Dr. Heinz Schmiedel studied Electrical Engineering at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen – University of Applied Sciences and received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1975. He earned his Master’s Degree and Dr.-Ing. Degree in Electrical Engineering from University Bremen in 1979 and 1983 respectively. Research interests were in the field of simulating microwave components. After he joined Deutsche Bundespost (now Deutsche Telekom) he did research on satellite links with the Research Institute of Deutsche Bundespost, Darmstadt, Germany. From 1990 – 2020 he was a Professor with the University of Applied Sciences FH Dieburg, Germany, with teaching and research emphasis on microwave components and systems. Since 2000 he is with the University of Applied Sciences Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany. His continued teaching and research interests are in the field of microwave components and systems, measurement technology, satellite communications, and numerical optimization procedures. He had the opportunity to do research and teaching during sabbaticals for a semester each, as a visiting professor to Intelsat Company, D.C., USA, 1995; University of Wisconsin, Platteville, WI, USA, 2003; Purdue University, Lafayette, IN, USA, 2009; and James Cook University, Townsville, QL, Australia, 2016. He has published more than 40 scientific and conference papers.