Hybrid Arrays: How Many RF Chains are Required to Prevent Beam Squint?
Heedong Do, Namyoon Lee, Robert W. Heath, Angel Lozano
Abstract
With increasing frequencies, bandwidths, and array apertures, the phenomenon of beam squint arises as a serious impairment to beamforming. Fully digital arrays with true time delay per antenna element are a potential solution, but they require downconversion at each element. This paper shows that hybrid arrays can perform essentially as well as digital arrays once the number of radio-frequency chains exceeds a certain threshold that is far below the number of elements. This threshold is determined by only a few physical parameters—bandwidth, array size, and beamforming direction—and can be expressed in a remarkably simple closed form. The result is robust, holding also for suboptimum yet highly appealing beamspace architectures.