Architectures for Large-Scale Phased Arrays in 5G, 6G and SATCOM

Beamforming has emerged as a critical technology for 5G, SATCOM and 6G applications. In commercial 5G mm-wave frequencies (24, 28 and 29GHz), large-scale arrays of nearly 1000 elements are utilized on the infrastructure side to ensure robust links across reasonable cell sizes. SATCOM terminals exploit even larger arrays to achieve the required EIRP and G/T for multi-orbit operation across LEO, MEO and GEO orbits. Managing these large-scale array implementations while keeping power consumption and cost in check requires co-optimization across system design, array design and beamformer design. As we look towards the emerging bands of >100GHz and FR3 (7–15GHz) in 6G, while beamforming will be a critical technology to these links, the choice of array architecture remains open, with digital beamforming being a strong candidate for FR3 and reconfigurable surfaces being considered at >100GHz frequencies.