TU/e partnership will develop 30GHz antennas for 5g networks

A partnership led by Eindhoven University of Technology will be working on base stations for mobile networks that will enable installations of hundreds to thousands of antennas.

Those antennas can process signals of 30GHz, much higher than the frequencies for 4G. The many antennas in the base station for 5g should enable a wide variety of signals, writes the TU/e. By placing many antennas in the base station, the station can be active on many frequencies at the same time and in combination with, for example, smartphones that support this, higher speeds are possible.

This is a European partnership led by the TU/e, but also includes companies such as network company Ericsson and Philips spin-off NXP, known for, among other things, the nfc chips in telephones and the public transport chip card.

The consortium will receive a subsidy of more than three million euros from the Horizon 2020 research programme, from which Europe provides subsidies for research projects. It is unknown when the base stations should be ready.

Current base stations already contain multiple antennas for different frequencies. The current 4G networks operate on frequencies between 800MHz and 2.6GHz, much lower than the 30GHz that TU/e ​​mentions.