Wireless-Fed Pinching-Antenna Systems with Horn Antennas
2026-02-24 • Information Theory
Information Theory
AI summaryⓘ
The authors study a new wireless system that improves high-frequency communication by using special antennas connected to dielectric waveguides. They add a smart relay with directional horn antennas to boost the signal and reduce interference, helping to extend coverage without extra cables. By optimizing the antenna positions, relay power, and base station transmission, they find the best setup to minimize energy use while maintaining connection quality. Their results show this method uses less power compared to older systems without relays or with fixed antennas.
pinching-antennadielectric waveguidehigh-frequency communicationhorn antennafull-duplex relayamplify-and-forwardsignal-to-noise ratiopower optimizationcoverage extensionself-interference
Authors
Hao Feng, Ming Zeng, Ebrahim Bedeer, Xingwang Li, Octavia A. Dobre, Zhiguo Ding
Abstract
Pinching-antenna systems have recently emerged as a promising solution for enhancing coverage in high-frequency wireless communications by guiding signals through dielectric waveguides and radiating them via position-adjustable antennas. However, their practical deployment is fundamentally constrained by waveguide attenuation and line-installation requirements, which limit the achievable coverage range. To address this challenge, this paper investigates a wireless-fed pinching-antenna architecture that employs highly directional horn antennas to enable efficient coverage extension. Specifically, a full-duplex amplify-and-forward relay equipped with horn antennas is introduced between the base station and the waveguide input, which significantly improves the link budget in high-frequency bands while effectively eliminating self-interference. On this basis, we formulate a total power minimization problem subject to a quality-of-service constraint at the user equipment, involving the joint optimization of the pinching-antenna position, the relay amplification gain, and the base station transmit power. By exploiting the structure of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio, the optimal pinching-antenna position is first obtained in closed form by balancing waveguide attenuation and free-space path loss. Subsequently, closed-form expressions for the optimal relay gain and transmit power are derived. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme substantially outperforms conventional systems without relaying and relay-assisted transmission with fixed antennas in terms of total power consumption.