Iterative joint beamforming training with constant-amplitude phased arrays in millimeter-wave communications

In millimeter-wave communications (MMWC), in order to compensate for high propagation attenuation, phased arrays are favored to achieve array gain by beamforming, where transmitting and receiving antenna arrays need to be jointly trained to obtain appropriate antenna weight vectors (AWVs). Since the amplitude of each element of the AWV is usually constraint constant to simplify the design of phased arrays in MMWC, the existing singular vector based beamforming training scheme cannot be used for such devices. Thus, in this letter, a steering vector based iterative beamforming training scheme, which exploits the directional feature of MMWC channels, is proposed for devices with constant-amplitude phased arrays. Performance evaluations show that the proposed scheme achieves a fast convergence rate as well as a near optimal array gain.