Uniform circular arrays for smart antennas

One of the most recent innovations to overcome the demands for increased capacity nowadays, is that of deploying smart antennas for wireless communications. A smart or adaptive antenna is defined as one that combines multiple antenna elements with a signal processing capability to optimize its radiation or reception pattern automatically, in response to the signal environment. The paper concentrates on the use of circular arrays for smart antennas. An overview of smart antennas is provided. The necessity for implementing uniform circular arrays (UCAs) for adaptive antennas and several adaptive algorithms applicable to UCAs are mentioned. For the simulation process, a specific UCA configuration has been examined, where adaptive beamforming was performed in both azimuth and elevation (for fixed elevation and azimuth angles, respectively) according to certain requirements in the design (directions of signals of interest and signals not of interest) imposed by the wireless environment.