华为5G天线新突破—CableFree技术

近日，华为发布了CableFree技术，该新技术使得基站天线集成度、辐射效率、功率容量等关键能力获得重大突破，标志着5G时代天线发展迈入一个新时代。

在5G时代，随着更多频谱和高阶MIMO应用，多频天线内部复杂度急剧升高，天线设计面临着性能、功率容量、可靠性、生产效率等多方面挑战。

华为CableFree突破当前天线设计瓶颈，使天线各个方面能力有效提升，更好地匹配5G网络建设需求：

1）5G更好的高频覆盖。

5G采用了更高的频段，需要更高的天线增益以提供更高广覆盖。同时5G网络覆盖需要多频段协同完成，如使用1.8GHz/2.1GHz等频段作为5G上行，高频覆盖对5G体验连续性起着重要作用。CableFree技术提高天线辐射效率约20%，从而提高覆盖质量。

2）满足5G时代更多频段、更多通道带来的更大输出功率需求。

5G时代大容量和高速率需求，需要应用更多频谱和高阶MIMO，天线承载功率将从五、六百瓦增加到一千瓦以上。CableFree技术提升天线功率容量80%以上，满足5G时代更大输出功率需求。

3）减轻天线重量，易于安装部署。

天线部件的高度集成，有效减轻天线重量。以6频天线为例，整体重量减轻10kg左右，控制多频天线重量在50kg以内，避免使用吊车，从而简化安装过程，节省安装成本。

4）天线PIM性能更优。

CableFree技术减少天线内部80%螺钉和焊接点，降低了PIM风险和保障了长期PIM稳定性；其新架构和工艺提高了生产自动化比例，保证批量生产性能一致性更好。

CableFree采用无线缆馈电设计、一体化集成移相器设计等革命性技术和工艺，使天线集成度跨越式提高，也使得天线性能得到多方面提升。CableFree技术应用于华为Munich Pro、Golden Mini及London Pro系列天线，以及32T32R Massive MIMO等产品，帮助客户更好更快地部署5G网络。

华为天线业务总裁张家义说：“天线对5G网络性能起着关键作用，更高性能和更高集成度是5G时代天线技术创新方向。 CableFree技术突破当前天线设计技术瓶颈，是5G时代天线技术发展的必然趋势，是为客户提供更有竞争力产品的关键技术。华为坚持以客户为中心，围绕客户5G目标网需求不断创新，助力客户建设高效、高性能网络，获的5G时代商业成功。”

英文版

[Shenzhen, China, May 22, 2020]Huawei recently released a new technology for antennas CableFree. The new technology will enable base station antennas to significantly improve in multiple key capabilities, including integration, radiation efficiency, and power capacity. This marks a new stage of antenna development in the 5G era.

5G has seen more bands introduced and higher-order MIMO applied to mobile networks. This leads to an excessive increase in the internal complexity of multi-band antenna structure, placing antenna design under vast challenges in multiple areas. These include antenna performance, power capacity, reliability, and production efficiency. Huawei's CableFree technology breaks the bottleneck in current antenna design to substantially improve antenna performance and meet 5G construction requirements.

1. Exceptional high-band coverage for 5G. The introduction of high frequency bands in 5G requires antenna gains to be significantly increased to provide wide coverage. This further mandates multi-band coordination to complete such wide coverage. A typical example is to utilize 1.8 GHz and 2.1 GHz bands to implement 5G uplink coverage. Therefore, high-band coverage is essential for ensuring 5G experience consistency. CableFree improves antenna radiation efficiency by approximately 20%, boosting high-quality coverage of the 5G era.

2. Higher output power to facilitate 5G multi-band and multi-channel applications. 5G is designed to meet high-capacity and high-speed requirements, and this highlights the necessity of introducing new spectrum and deploying high-order MIMO technology. To adapt to this trend, antennas must accommodate a high power of up to 1 kW, far above 500 to 600 watts of previous radio access technologies. CableFree increases the antenna power capacity by more than 80%, meeting the requirements for higher output power in the 5G era.

3. Reduced antenna weight to facilitate installation. A higher level of antenna component integration offers an effective approach to reduce antenna weight. With CableFree, a six-band antenna can be 10 kg lighter. The weight of multi-band antennas can be kept below 50 kg. As a result, a crane is not required during installation, simplifying installation and reducing cost.

4. Better PIM performance. PIM is short for passive intermodulation, reflecting signal interaction at the junction of two metal mechanical components of antennas. CableFree reduces screws and soldering points in antennas by 80%, reducing PIM risks while also ensuring long-term PIM stability. The resulting novel architecture and process further improve production automation and consistency among batches.

CableFree features a number of revolutionary technologies and techniques, including cable-free feeding and integrated phase shifters. This produces a distinct increase in antenna integration, tangibly improving antenna performance. To date, CableFree has been successfully applied to Huawei's Munich Pro, Golden Mini, and London Pro series antennas, as well as 32T32R Massive MIMO products, helping customers quickly deploy high-quality 5G networks.

Zhang Jiayi, President of Huawei Antenna Business Unit, said: "Antennas are crucial for 5G networks. Higher performance and integration are the main trends of antenna innovation in the 5G era. CableFree breaks the antenna design bottleneck, representing an inevitable trend of the antenna industry. Huawei always innovates based on customer requirements for 5G target networks to help customers build efficient and high-performance networks and achieve business success in the 5G era."