Impact of antenna patterns and orientations in heterogeneous LTE-Advanced networks

Antenna configurations and orientations are known to have a major influence on the performance of a wireless communications link. In this paper we study the impact of antenna patterns and orientations on the downlink of an OFDMA LTE-Advanced system. We consider a heterogeneous network (HetNet) comprising a large macrocell with a single picocellular underlay. The spatial and temporal characteristics of the radio channel are modelled using 3D ray-tracing and combined with appropriately oriented complex polarmetric antenna patterns. The handset is rotated in the azimuth and elevation planes to evaluate performance sensitivity. User performance is analysed in terms of data throughput, received power, bit error rate and packet error rate. The received bit mutual information rate (RBIR) abstraction technique is applied for all modulation and coding schemes (MCS) to determine the optimal physical layer throughput. Results show that antenna pattern and orientation significantly influence user performance, especially in the macrocell.