Energy efficient 5G networks

Abstract

For a greener tomorrow, an important step today will be the energy efficient designs in any aspect. The 5G networks which is most awaited by all, though proposes better data rates, but also speaks about the energy efficiency in its agenda. A broad study of different techniques for energy efficiency reveals that beamforming plays a crucial role. Thus leading to this thesis mainly concentrating on the aspects of beamforming. Beamforming though has been into existence for more than over a decade, continuous improvements in the methodology keeps it ahead of many other technologies used for the common goal. This thesis work is done with the concept called multi-beam beamforming. An interesting concept of amplitude tapering is tailed to keep a check on the magnitude of power supplied at the antenna terminals. Using these, the thesis compares the gain values of both the desired and undesired users which will aid in estimating the amount of power required for covering a set of users using different tapering methods. This works also includes the effect of increasing number of antennas and the users and the effect on the gain values for both desired and undesired users. This develops a scope to introduce a new metric called “potential power improvement” for different tapering methods. Also, a framework has been developed to expand and evaluate the cases mentioned above to a multi-cell scenario in both general antenna configuration and Massive MIMO configuration.