Shenglu Project Wins Second Prize in Guangdong Science and Technology Progress Award
The Guangdong Provincial People’s Government recently announced the recipients of the 2025 Guangdong Science and Technology Awards. A project led by Guangdong Shenglu Telecommunication Tech. Co., Ltd., titled “Key Technologies and Applications of Beam-Coordinated Antenna Systems for 5G-A Capacity Expansion and Energy Efficiency Improvement,” received the Second Prize in the Science and Technology Progress category.
The project was jointly completed with China Mobile Group Guangdong Co., Ltd., Foshan University, and Guangdong Shenglu Telecommunication Co., Ltd.
The award marks another milestone in Shenglu’s sustained investment in core antenna technologies and collaboration across industry, academia, and research institutions. It also recognizes the project team’s years of dedicated research and development.
01 | Addressing Three Key Challenges in 5G-A Deployment
As 5G-Advanced deployment progresses, operators face three common challenges: limited spectrum, constrained tower space, and growing pressure to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.
In densely populated urban areas, sites must accommodate antennas supporting multiple radio technologies and frequency bands, leaving increasingly limited mounting space. Along high-speed rail routes, trains traveling at 350 km/h reduce beam handover windows to milliseconds, where a failed handover can interrupt a call. In hot and humid overseas markets, corrosion protection requirements and energy consumption further increase operating and maintenance costs.
Simply adding more antennas increases system complexity without fully addressing these challenges. The project team took a different approach: enabling more frequency bands and beams to share a single antenna aperture while making the antenna thinner, lighter, and more energy efficient.
02 | Three Technology Approaches, One Integrated System
Focusing on multiband shared-aperture integration and dual–dual-beam configurations, the team overcame several technical challenges that have long constrained antenna development.
The solution combines three core approaches: broadband integration, high isolation between closely spaced elements, and a low-profile structural design. Together, these allow a single antenna to support more frequency bands and beams while reducing the number of antennas required at each site and the overall equipment size.
The design maintains performance and reliability, reduces system complexity and costs, and increases capacity per site. For challenging coverage environments, including high-speed rail corridors and smart cities, it improves coverage through antenna design optimization rather than additional site deployment.
03 | From Domestic Networks to Overseas Markets, from Cities to Tropical Environments
The technologies have been deployed at scale across Guangdong and other regions of China, serving high-speed rail corridors, densely populated urban areas, industrial parks, and remote rural sites. These deployments have reduced antenna counts per site, eased mounting-space constraints, and lowered associated infrastructure costs.
In dedicated railway 5G networks, coordinated dual-beam handovers have reduced handover interruption times to milliseconds, supporting continuous coverage at high speeds.
The products have also been deployed in Malaysia and Indonesia. Their lightweight design and resistance to high temperatures and humidity have earned validation from local operators, while the products have entered the supply chains of leading global telecommunications equipment vendors.
04 | Built on Years of Innovation
The project has secured more than 30 granted patents. The team has contributed to revisions of ETSI international standards and has led or participated in the development of multiple industry and association standards.
Two related technological achievements were assessed as being at an “internationally leading level” in evaluations organized by a provincial industry association. In addition, Shenglu’s microwave antenna products received Guangdong’s Manufacturing Single Champion recognition in 2024.
Looking ahead, the team plans to integrate artificial intelligence algorithms more deeply into beam management and network optimization. This will enable antennas to respond more quickly to changing service demands in dense urban areas, high-speed mobility environments, and emerging low-altitude applications. The team also plans to extend its research across a broader spectrum range, laying the technological groundwork for 6G.
Antennas sit at the front end of wireless networks and play a critical role in determining overall network performance. Shenglu will continue to advance broader frequency coverage, thinner antenna designs, and more precise coverage, bringing its accumulated expertise to the large-scale commercialization of 5G-Advanced and the evolution toward 6G.
