The future of smart antennas: evolution to 3G and IP networks

Over the next few years, service providers will begin deploying 3G wireless air interfaces to increase capacity and support new multimedia services. For the first time network operators will be able to select from multiple radio access technologies that can interface with either GSM UAP or ANSI-4I core networks. As a part of this evolution, wireless systems will migrate to IP-based core networks to take advantage of the cost efficiencies associated with Internet infrastructure. With further maturity of voice over IP technology, wireless air interfaces themselves will shift to IP over the radio link. With spectrum being a limited commodity service providers will be challenged to extract maximum capacity from their networks. Smart antennas provide an attractive means of increasing the capacity of today´s 2G voice networks, as well as tomorrow´s 3G Internet and multimedia networks. This paper examines smart antenna architectures for both CDMA and GSM networks. Emphasis is placed on their real-world performance in cellular and PCS networks. The first smart antenna is designed for CDMA networks, with the goal of addressing many of the fundamental performance limitations that exist within these networks. The smart antenna is implemented as a non-invasive add-on to current CDMA base stations. The second antenna is designed as an integral subsystem embedded within specially adapted 3G CDMA base stations. The embedded architecture increases the CDMA air link capacity by 100% to 200% through beam processing for each traffic channel. The third antenna is designed for current GSM and evolving GPRS/EDGE networks