A Low-Complexity Placement Design of Pinching-Antenna Systems

Abstract: Pinching-antenna systems have recently been proposed as a new candidate for flexible-antenna systems, not only inheriting the reconfiguration capability but also offering a unique feature: establishing line-of-sight links to mitigate large-scale path loss. However, sophisticated optimization of the placement of pinching antennas has very high complexity, which is challenging for practical implementation. This paper proposes a low-complexity placement design, providing the closed-form expression of the placement of pinching antennas, to maximize the sum rate of multiple downlink users. Orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are both investigated when the pinching-antenna system is only equipped with a single antenna and only the OMA case is studied when there are multiple antennas equipped by the pinching-antenna system. Simulation results indicate pinching-antenna systems can outperform conventional fixed-antenna systems and are more suitable for large service areas.