Holographic Beamforming Versus Massive MIMO
Posted on March 16, 2018
Last year, the startup company Pivotal Commware secured venture capital (e.g., from Bill Gates) to bring its holographic beamforming technology to commercial products. Despite the word “holographic,” this is not a technology focused on visual-light communications. Instead, the company uses passive electronically steered antennas (PESAs) that are designed for radio-frequencies (RFs) in the micro- and millimeter-wave bands. It is the impedance pattern created in the distribution network over the array that is called a “hologram” and different holograms lead to beamforming in different spatial directions. The company reportedly aims at having commercial products ready this year.