FAU researchers Muhammad Zubair, Dr. Vasilis K. Papanikolaou, and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert Schober will receive a prestigious Best Paper Award at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) 2026.
The award-winning paper is titled “Closed-form Model for Radiation Pattern of Pinching Antennas”.
About the research:
The paper addresses a fundamental limitation in the modelling of pinching-antenna systems (PASS), an emerging flexible-antenna technology for 6G and beyond. Virtually all existing works model the pinching antenna as an omni-directional point radiator – an assumption that is physically inconsistent with the underlying electromagnetic radiation mechanism. The awarded paper closes this gap: it is the first work to derive, from first principles and without any fitting parameters, a closed-form model for the radiation pattern of pinching antennas, combining coupled-mode theory with radiation integral. The model predicts the beam direction, beamwidth, and coupling length directly from the waveguide and antenna geometry, and is validated against full-wave finite-element simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics. The results show that neglecting the directional nature of pinching antennas leads to suboptimal antenna placement and a spectral efficiency loss of several dB, a finding that directly affects simulation results across the entire PASS literature. This work provides a physically grounded and computationally efficient framework that can be readily integrated into existing PASS system-level analyses, enabling more accurate modelling and optimization of future wireless communication networks.
The award will be presented at the Best Paper Awards ceremony on December 9, 2026, during IEEE GLOBECOM 2026, the flagship conference of the IEEE Communications Society, held December 7–11, 2026, at The Venetian Macao in Macau, China.
IEEE GLOBECOM 2026 attracted a record number of more than 3000 submissions from leading academic and industrial researchers worldwide. Only 12 papers will be recognized with a Best Paper Award.