This book is designed for both the scientific audience, research and development engineers and university students. The fundamentals of radio frequency antenna beam forming are explained in this book. The principles of beam focusing and beam steering in near field and far field are visualized with 2D and 3D simulations and compared with measurement results. Besides linear and planar antenna arrays, also conformal arrays, i.e. concave and convex antenna arrays, suitable for certain applications, are investigated and presented. Also related applications of open loop and closed loop beam forming, and massive MIMO, which is one of the break-through technologies for 5G and future 6G and involves an extremely large number of antenna elements for the multi-user beam forming, are discussed in detail. Also covered are large scale antenna arrays as well as thinned antenna arrays with electrically large distances between the antenna elements.
Dr. Shun-Ping Chen studied Electrical Engineering with majors in High Frequency Engineering, Telecommunication Technologies and Systems at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany and received his Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.) degree with a thesis on Investigation of Various Components of the Optoelectronic Integration in 1992 before he worked as Research and Development Engineer and Project Manager at the research center of Fuba, engaged in Microwave Engineering, Antenna Design, Broadband CATV Network Planning and Optimization projects. In 1995, he became Project Engineer, Project Manager, Group Leader, and Head of Department at the German Mobile Network Operator E-Plus, now merged into O2 Telefonica Germany, where he was responsible for Transport Network Planning & Systems, and also proposed and conducted the Fiber Optical SDH/DWDM Backbone Network Project. From 2003 until 2008 he was CTO and IT Director of different German Companies in the fields of Electronics, News Media, and Transport Logistics. Since 2008 Dr. Chen is Professor of Communication Technologies and Networks at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Germany.
Dr. Heinz Schmiedel studied Electrical Engineering at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen--University of Applied Sciences and received his Bachelor's degree in 1975. He earned his Master's degree and Dr.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from University Bremen in 1979 and 1983, respectively. Research interests were in the field of simulating and designing microwave components. After he joined Deutsche Bundespost (now Deutsche Telekom), he did research on satellite links with the Research Institute of Deutsche Bundespost, Darmstadt, Germany. From 1990 to 2020, he was Professor with the University of Applied Sciences FH Dieburg, Germany, with teaching and research emphasis on microwave components and systems. Since 2000, he is with the University of Applied Sciences Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany. His continued teaching and research interests are in the field of microwave components and systems, measurement technology, satellite communications, and numerical optimization procedures.
