Direction-of-Arrival Measurement of Beamformed Millimeter Wave 5G Downlink Signals

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate a method for measuring the direction-of-arrival (DoA) of beamformed millimeter wave downlink signals in 5G mobile radio networks. The proposed method exploits the downlink synchronization signal structure of millimeter wave base stations to employ a virtual uniform circular antenna array approach for spatial sampling. It provides information on the temporal and spatial characteristics of the major radio signal propagation paths on a per beam level. Results of experimental proof-of-concept measurements conducted in an operational 5G network deployment are presented.