An investigation into smart antenna configurations for wideband communication

The challenge of next generation wireless communication systems comes from the fact that they will have to offer data rates in the hundreds of megabits per second. This requirement translates into the demand for wide frequency bands. The problem of overcoming spectrum limitation while delivering high data rate requirement can be achieved using wideband smart antennas. In this paper, three technologies for a smart antenna system operating over a wide band of frequency are investigated. These concern: space-time signal processing, space-frequency signal processing and fully spatial signal processing. The fundamental principles of these three technologies are examined in this paper.