X-PASS improves wireless coverage with radial waveguide antennas
Design and Analysis of Pinching-Antenna Systems With Radially Deployed Waveguides (X-PASS)
Information Theory
Summary
Wireless signals can be tricky to send reliably across an area using antennas placed on a single line. The authors propose a new system called X-PASS that arranges antennas along waveguides extending out like spokes from a central hub. This setup combines signals in ways that improve overall coverage and signal quality. The paper models the losses in the hub and compares how different ways of handling the signals affect performance, showing when combining signals helps the most.
What this means in practice
- •For network infrastructure engineers: Design wireless access points with radially arranged antennas to improve coverage in complex indoor or outdoor spaces using X-PASS principles.
- •For satellite communication designers: Use the X-PASS framework to optimize antenna configurations that need multi-directional coverage in satellite or aerospace systems.
Authors
Wei Jiang, Hans D. Schotten
Abstract
Pinching-antenna systems (PASS) reconfigure the wireless channel by positioning dielectric antennas along a waveguide. A single waveguide, however, confines its antennas to one line, so that good coverage of an area has relied on several waveguides or waveguide segments with separate feeds. This paper proposes X-PASS, in which a hub feeds radially deployed waveguide arms, one pinching antenna on each, and drives them by arm selection, aggregation or multiplexing. It models the hub with its insertion losses, derives a unified signal-to-noise ratio expression for these three operating modes, and derives in closed form a radius inside which aggregation outperforms selection. Numerical results validate the analysis and compare the coverage of X-PASS with that of the other layouts at equal transmit power.