PERFORMANCE OF SWITCHED-BEAM SMART ANTENNAS FOR CELLULAR RADIO SYSTEMS

The performance and feasibility of switched-beam smart antennas for ce llular radio systems is investigated. Switched-beam smart antenna syst ems are shown to either increase the capacity or extend the radio cove rage by increasing the carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR). The trunki ng efficiency degradation caused by narrow-beam sectoring can be recov ered or even improved by using a variety of trunkpool techniques. One drawback of switched-beam smart antennas is that the improvement in re verse-channel performance is not uniform over the entire cell area, an d this presents a limiting factor on the achievable gains. Practical c onsiderations such as power control and the limited deployment of smar t antenna cells are also addressed.