Examining the role of the antenna in millimetre wave point to multipoint communications systems

The interest in millimetre wave radio as a means of providing high capacity data transport has resulted in new challenges for the designers and manufacturers of millimetre wave systems and components. The emphasis is shifting towards high volume, low cost production of millimetre wave equipment. This paper focuses on the performance requirements of antennas in millimetre wave point-to-multipoint systems and examines the impact that the performance of both the base station and the outstation antennas has on the operation of the system as a whole in terms of maximisation of spectrum use