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Smart Antennas and Systems for 5G and Beyond: Latest Advances...
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Smart Antennas and Systems for 5G and Beyond: Latest Advances and Prospects

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2025 | Viewed by 6447

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jesús Alberto López Fernández

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Area of Signal Theory and Communications, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Oviedo, 33203 Gijon, Spain
Interests: iterative methods and speed-up schemes; parallel algorithms; machine learning techniques applied in antenna design and signal processing
Dr. Lei Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Sensor Signal, Systems School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK
Interests: antenna theory and applications; active electronically scanning arrays; integrated antennas and arrays; leaky-wave antennas; radio waves carrying OAM; wireless power transfer
Dr. Ignacio Rodríguez Larrad

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Area of Signal Theory and Communications, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Oviedo, 33203 Gijon, Spain
Interests: radio propagation; 5G; 6G; industrial communications; non-terrestrial networks; Internet of Things
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Wei Fan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronic Systems, The Technical Faculty of IT and Design, University of Aalborg, 9920 Aalbog, Denmark
Interests: radio channel sounding; parameter estimation and modeling; antenna measurements; over-the-air testing; array signal processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development and deployment of recent wireless networks, such as 5G, future 6G, and new WiFi standards, go hand in hand with a plethora of new and different applications that have increasingly stringent requirements. In the near future, it is expected that 5G FR1 networks will be widely deployed, 5G FR2 networks will be developed, numerous satellite constellations will be launched, and the foundations of 6G will be established. All these developments come under the promise of offering higher data rates and negligible latency, and will eventually lead to universal connectivity. The aim is to implement a cellular network in which sensors, appliances, mobiles, and autonomous devices (such as cars or even industrial elements) are able to interact with each other and comply with different requirements according to their different natures. In addition, 5G will allow for the coexistence of multiple users requiring high data rates. The development of smart or adaptive antennas plays a key role in the fulfilment of the stringent requirements that these new communication scenarios will pose.

The objective of this Special Issue is to illuminate the latest advancements in the design of smart antennas, with the ultimate goal of advancing the aforementioned applications and expanding the horizons of this captivating field. We warmly welcome researchers and industry professionals to contribute original research papers focusing on various topics, including, but not limited to:

  • Multibeam antenna technologies.
  • Plane-wave generators.
  • Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.
  • Metamaterial-based antennas.
  • Wearable antennas.
  • Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and THz antennas.
  • Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and THz cooperative relays.
  • Compact antennas for massive MIMO.
  • Sub-THz channel sounders using phased-array and virtual-array solutions.
  • Antennas for the Internet of Things.
  • Antennas and transceivers for full-duplex communication.
  • Mobile UE tracking antennas for LEO satellite systems.
  • Advanced 5G mmWave antennas for mobile industrial elements.
  • Miniaturized UWB and mmWave antennas for novel 6G in-X subnetwork scenarios.
  • Antennas for wireless power transmission and harvesting.

Dr. Jesús Alberto López Fernández
Dr. Lei Wang
Dr. Ignacio Rodríguez Larrad
Dr. Wei Fan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plane-wave generator
  • RIS
  • channel sounder for spatial profile measurements
  • 5G
  • 6G
  • non-terrestrial networks
  • adaptive antennas
  • tracking
  • active arrays
  • reconfigurable antennas and arrays
  • hybrid scanned arrays
  • AI inspired/assisted/augmented antennas and arrays

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 6852 KiB  
Article
Sofware-Defined Radio Testbed for I/Q Imbalanced Single-Carrier Communication Systems
by Álvaro Pendás-Recondo, Jesús Alberto López-Fernández and Rafael González-Ayestarán
Electronics 2024, 13(15), 3002; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13153002 - 30 Jul 2024
Viewed by 764
Abstract
An end-to-end testbed for In-phase and Quadrature (I/Q) Imbalance (IQI) communication systems based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is presented. The scenario under consideration is a Single-Input–Single-Output (SISO) single-carrier communication where the transmitter is heavily affected by IQI, whose effects are mitigated through digital [...] Read more.
An end-to-end testbed for In-phase and Quadrature (I/Q) Imbalance (IQI) communication systems based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is presented. The scenario under consideration is a Single-Input–Single-Output (SISO) single-carrier communication where the transmitter is heavily affected by IQI, whose effects are mitigated through digital signal processing at the receiver. The presented testbed is highly configurable, enabling the testing of different communication and IQI parameters. Crucial insights into the practical implementation of IQI mitigation techniques, specifically through the use of asymmetric signaling at the receiver, are provided. Initially, a detailed description of the mathematical framework is given. This framework serves as the foundation for the subsequent discussion on system implementation, effectively bridging the gap between research on IQI mitigation and its practical application in single-carrier architectures. Over-The-Air (OTA) Symbol Error Rate (SER) measurements for different constellations validate the receiver design and implementation. The source code of the presented testbed is publicly available. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and Systems for 5G and Beyond: Latest Advances and Prospects)
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21 pages, 2276 KiB  
Article
Beam Prediction for mmWave V2I Communication Using ML-Based Multiclass Classification Algorithms
by Karamot Kehinde Biliaminu, Sherif Adeshina Busari, Jonathan Rodriguez and Felipe Gil-Castiñeira
Electronics 2024, 13(13), 2656; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13132656 - 6 Jul 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1711
Abstract
Beam management is a key functionality in establishing and maintaining reliable communication in cellular and vehicular networks, and it becomes more critical at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies and for high-mobility scenarios. Traditional approaches consume wireless resources and incur high beam training overheads in finding [...] Read more.
Beam management is a key functionality in establishing and maintaining reliable communication in cellular and vehicular networks, and it becomes more critical at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies and for high-mobility scenarios. Traditional approaches consume wireless resources and incur high beam training overheads in finding the best beam pairings, thus necessitating alternative approaches such as position-aided, vision-aided, or, more generally, sensing-aided beam prediction approaches. Current systems are also leveraging artificial intelligence/machine learning (ML) to optimize the beam management procedures; however, the majority of the proposed ML frameworks have been applied to synthetic datasets, leading to overestimated performances. In this work, in the context of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication and using the real-world DeepSense6G experimental datasets, we investigate the performance of four ML algorithms on beam prediction accuracy for mmWave V2I scenarios. We compare the performance of K-nearest neighbour (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), decision tree (DT), and naïve Bayes (NB) algorithms on position-aided beam prediction accuracy and related metrics such as precision, recall, specificity, and F1-score. The impacts of different beam codebook sizes and dataset split ratios on five different scenarios’ datasets were investigated, independently and collectively. Confusion matrices and area under the receiver operating characteristic curves were also employed to visualize the (mis)classification statistics of the considered ML algorithms. The results show that SVM outperforms the other three algorithms, for the most part, on the scenario-per-scenario cases. However, for the combined scenario with larger data samples, DT outperforms the other three algorithms for both the different codebook sizes and data split ratios. The results also show comparable performance for the different data split ratios considered for the different algorithms. However, with respect to the codebook sizes, the results show that the higher the codebook size, the lower the beam prediction accuracy. With the best accuracy results around 70% for the combined scenario in this study, multi-modal sensing-aided approaches can be explored to increase the beam prediction performance, although at the expense of higher system complexity when compared to the position-aided approach considered in this study. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and Systems for 5G and Beyond: Latest Advances and Prospects)
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Review

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21 pages, 779 KiB  
Review
Optically Transparent Antennas for 5G and Beyond: A Review
by Bernardo Dominguez, Fábio Silva, Amit Baghel, Daniel Albuquerque and Pedro Pinho
Electronics 2025, 14(8), 1616; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14081616 - 16 Apr 2025
Viewed by 232
Abstract
As wireless communication technology advances towards faster and higher transmission rates such as Fifth Generation (5G) and beyond, the need for multiple access points increases. The growing demand for access points often results in them occupying any available surface area and potentially disrupting [...] Read more.
As wireless communication technology advances towards faster and higher transmission rates such as Fifth Generation (5G) and beyond, the need for multiple access points increases. The growing demand for access points often results in them occupying any available surface area and potentially disrupting the existing scenery. In order to address this issue, Optically Transparent Antennas (OTAs) emerge as an optimal solution for balancing the aesthetics of a specific setting with the desired communication system requirements. These antennas can be integrated into various infrastructures without interfering with the design of the objects on which they are installed. Research on the techniques and materials for OTA fabrication, which is proposed as a solution to the 5G wireless communication demand for access points, is presented. This work will highlight key antenna characteristics such as gain, bandwidth, efficiency, and transparency, and how the materials used for OTA implementation influence these parameters. Techniques like Metal Mesh (MM), Transparent Conductive Film (TCF), and Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) will be explained. The performance of the OTAs will be analyzed based on gain, bandwidth, transparency, and efficiency. This paper also addresses the challenges and limitations associated with OTAs. Finally, it confirms that OTAs offer a compelling solution for this scenario by balancing aesthetics with high antenna performance, making them an innovation for future wireless networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and Systems for 5G and Beyond: Latest Advances and Prospects)
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23 pages, 9813 KiB  
Review
Overview of Reconfigurable Antenna Systems for IoT Devices
by Elena García, Aurora Andújar and Jaume Anguera
Electronics 2024, 13(20), 3988; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13203988 - 10 Oct 2024
Viewed by 2769
Abstract
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as trackers and sensors, necessitates a delicate balance between device miniaturization and performance. This extends to the antenna system, which must be both efficient and multiband operational while fitting within space-constrained electronic enclosures. Traditional [...] Read more.
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as trackers and sensors, necessitates a delicate balance between device miniaturization and performance. This extends to the antenna system, which must be both efficient and multiband operational while fitting within space-constrained electronic enclosures. Traditional antennas, however, struggle to meet these miniaturization demands. Reconfigurable antennas have emerged as a promising solution for adapting their frequency, radiation pattern, or polarization in response to changing requirements, making them ideal for IoT applications. Among various reconfiguration techniques (electrical, mechanical, optical, and material-based), electrical reconfiguration reigns supreme for IoT applications. Its suitability for compact devices, cost-effectiveness, and relative simplicity make it the preferred choice. This paper reviews various approaches to realizing IoT reconfigurable antennas, with a focus on electrical reconfiguration techniques. It categorizes these techniques based on their implementation, including PIN diodes, digital tunable capacitors (DTCs), varactor diodes, and RF switches. It also explores the challenges associated with the development and characterization of IoT reconfigurable antennas, evaluates the strengths and limitations of existing methods, and identifies open challenges for future research. Importantly, the growing trend towards smaller IoT devices has led to the development of antenna boosters. These components, combined with advanced reconfiguration techniques, offer new opportunities for enhancing antenna performance while maintaining a compact footprint. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and Systems for 5G and Beyond: Latest Advances and Prospects)
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