The European Commission, through RACE, ACTS and now the IST programs, has f
unded numerous consortium based research projects addressing capacity enhan
cement by means of Smart or Adaptive Antenna Technology. In addition to cap
acity enhancement, these projects ha,le also considered the additional oper
ational benefits, such as multipath mitigation and range extension, that th
is technology can offer to wireless network deployments. This paper pro, id
es an overview of the key results obtained from the test-beds and field tri
als conducted under the RACE and ACTS TSUNAMI projects as well as ACTS AWAC
S project. Further, new research activities, which embody Smart Antenna Tec
hnology, now supported under IST funding are also introduced.