Link Performance Improvement Using Reconfigurable Multiantenna Systems

In this work, we consider the link performance improvement achievable due to the use of multifunctional reconfigurable antennas (MRAs). Each MRA element used in this work has a reconfigurable radiation beam that can be dynamically steered in one of N_beams possible directions. Depending on the channel conditions, the direction that maximizes capacity or minimizes symbol error rate (SER) is chosen for each MRA. Simulation results are presented for four different transmission schemes - beamforming (BF), maximum ratio combining (MRC), spatial multiplexing (SM), and space-time block coding (STBC). The results show improvements in both capacity and SER are achievable for typical indoor channels (IEEE-802.11n model F and B). A key result is that this reconfigurable antenna system requires fewer number of antennas (therefore, fewer number of RF chains) to obtain performance similar to those of legacy multiantenna systems with larger number of RF chains.