Samsung has announced a significant breakthrough in the development of high-speed 5G mobile communications with the creation of an adaptive array transceiver capable of transmitting data in the millimeter-wave bands at a rate of up to 1.056 Gbit/s and a range of up to 2 km (1.2 miles).
Researchers have long believed that millimeter-wave bands offer the broad range of frequencies needed to support high bandwidths at a large commercial scale, which if utilized could help alleviate fears over the continued decrease in available spectrum. However, concerns over limits on the millimeter-wave bands’ ability to transmit data over long distances due to unfavorable propagation characteristics—terrestrial radio signals in the millimeter-wave band are extremely prone to absorption by atmospheric rain, snow and humidity—has placed limits on the development of technology.
However, Samsung believes the company’s new adaptive array transceiver technology could be a potentially effective solution for overcoming the radio propagation loss in millimeter-wave bands. The new technology, using 64 antenna elements, operates at 28 GHz, just outside the 30 to 300 GHz frequency range normally considered to be the millimeter-wave band.
While Samsung has yet to release any specifics with regards to its new technology, the electronics company did announced it plans to “accelerate” the research and development of 5G mobile communications technologies, including the adaptive array transceiver at the millimeter-wave bands, in order to commercialize the technologies by 2020.
