Smart antenna system design using switched beam technique

Abstract

Smart antennas technology offers a significantly improved solution to reduce interference levels and improve the system capacity. With this technology, each user’s signal is transmitted and received by the base station only in the direction of that particular user. This drastically reduces the overall interference in the system. A smart antennas system consists of an array of antennas that direct different transmission/reception beams toward each user in the system. This method of transmission and reception is called beamforming and is made possible through advanced digital signal processing at the baseband. In beamforming, each user’s signal is multiplied with complex algorithms that adjust the magnitude and phase of the signal to and from each antenna. This causes the output from the array of antennas to form a transmit/receive beam in the desired direction and minimizes the output in other directions.