Huawei Unveils 5G-Oriented Full-Band 4T4R, FDD/TDD Converged Antenna Platforms

At the Global Antenna Technology & Industry Forum recently held in Munich, Huawei has released its new FDD antenna and FDD/TDD converged antenna platforms.

These antennas apply to full-band 4T4R and FDD/TDD convergent networking to support a 5G-oriented smooth evolution. Stefan Feuchtinger, VP of Huawei’s Antenna Business Unit announced the release of the new antenna platforms

The Global Antenna Technology & Industry Forum is an influential platform within the antenna industry. This year's theme was ‘Antenna Modernization, Pave the Way to 5G’. Over 100 attendees from global operators and third-party industry organizations attended the forum to explore solutions to antenna applications and network evolution issues in the eras of 4.5G and 5G. Ultimately the forum helps to continuously promote innovations and developments in the antenna industry.

The new full-band 4T4R platform provides antenna to support two full low bands and four full high bands. This product adopts innovative decoupling (coupling between dipoles causes antenna performance degradation) and dipole reuse (dividing wide band dipole into two narrow bands using combiners) technologies to support co-antenna deployment on the 700MHz, 800MHz, and 900MHz bands. It also supports 4T4R in all bands including L band, within a width of only 469mm. This helps reserve antenna space for the deployment of Massive MIMO and 5G NR. These new antennas will be commercially available by the second half of 2018.

The new FDD/TDD converged platform has emerged as a trump card for multi-band co-antenna deployment of FDD and TDD 8T8R. The low-band arrays utilize innovative decoupling technology to effectively control the dimensions of antennas and enable co-antenna 4T4R deployment on the 700MHz, 800MHz, and 900MHz bands. High-band arrays support 4T4R on full high bands ranging from 1400MHz to 2600MHz. TDD bands adopt beamforming to support dual-8T8R deployment on both 2.3/2.6 GHz and 3.5GHz bands. This helps expand TDD network capacity while improving user experience.

Joyee Zhang, President of Huawei Wireless Network Antenna Business Unit, said, "Antenna modernization and reshaping are the starting line for 5G network construction. Only early planning and implementation can help operators achieve business success in the 5G era. Huawei antennas are dedicated to addressing operators' challenges and requirements. A series of antenna solutions have been launched to assist operators in resolving capacity and spectrum issues. The introduction of these solutions will effectively help to maximize network value, improve user experience, and achieve new business success."