This white paper illustrates a process to design hybrid beamforming in massive MIMO antenna arrays for 5G, using features available with MATLAB® and Simulink®.

Taking a 64 x 64 element, 66 GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) design as an example, we show a strategy to model antenna arrays and partition beamforming operations between the digital and RF domains, including:

  • Specifying an array and visualizing the geometry, 2D and 3D directivity, and grating lobes
  • Importing antenna patterns to increase model fidelity
  • Mitigating the effects of array element imperfections, element and subarray failures, and mutual coupling
  • Designing array architectures and generating RF phase shifts and digital complex weights
  • Measuring performance of link-level designs using high-fidelity, RF/digital multidomain simulations
  • Modeling multi-user beamforming scenarios
  • Assessing tradeoffs between performance, power dissipation, and implementation complexity