Finite-alphabet beamforming for multi-antenna wideband systems

A radio access node, comprising:

• an antenna array;
• channel estimator circuitry coupled to the antenna array and configured to provide an estimate of a wireless channel associated with a plurality of digital baseband signals for the antenna array;
• finite-alphabet beamforming circuitry coupled to the antenna array and the channel estimator circuitry, wherein:
• the finite-alphabet beamforming circuitry is configured to beamform the plurality of digital baseband signals in accordance with the estimate of the wireless channel;
• and
• the finite-alphabet beamforming circuitry comprises a finite-alphabet precoder configured to beamform a sequential array of digital signal samples;
• and
• processing circuitry coupled to the finite-alphabet precoder and configured to determine a precoder matrix applied to the sequential array of digital signal samples.

A radio access node, comprising:

• an antenna array;
• channel estimator circuitry coupled to the antenna array and configured to provide an estimate of a wireless channel associated with a plurality of digital baseband signals for the antenna array;
• and
• finite-alphabet beamforming circuitry coupled to the antenna array and the channel estimator circuitry, the finite-alphabet beamforming circuitry being configured to beamform the plurality of digital baseband signals in accordance with the estimate of the wireless channel and at a given resolution less than a resolution of the estimate of the wireless channel.