Title: Uplink analysis with mobile devices using directional-smart antennas

Authors: Bezalel Gavish, Yoram Ofek, Roger M. Whitaker

Addresses: Edwin L Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University, PO Box 750333, Dallas, TX 75275, USA. ' Department of Communications and Information Technology, Via Sommarive 14, Povo, Trento 38050, University of Trento, Trento, Italy. ' School of Computer Science, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Cardiff, UK

Abstract: ne of the main challenges of today|s networking is how to increase the capacity of wireless data networks. Given the inherent limitations of radio frequency (RF) transmission capacity, a promising approach is to divide the 2D/3D space into multiple subspaces and to apply spatial channel reuse, which has the potential: (1) to increase aggregate system capacity, (2) to increase the wireless transmission range, (3) to reduce signal-to-noise and signal-to-interference ratio (SNR/SIR), (4) to reduce fading and (5) to reduce power consumption. This paper focuses on how using switched-beam antenna, on mobile devices (stations), can improve wireless communications. Specifically, we study the potential benefit of using a selected one of a multiple flat panel directional antennas, where the antenna selection is performed dynamically – packet-by-packet. The initial results are promising and show significant improvements of various aspects of the wireless system performance.

Keywords: directional antenna; smart antenna; flat panel antenna; signal to interference ratio; SIR; mobile devices; mobile stations; uplink analysis; wireless system performance; wireless networks; mobile networks; switched-beam antenna; antenna selection; simulation; network design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMNDI.2005.007938

International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation, 2005 Vol.1 No.1, pp.76 - 83

Published online: 04 Oct 2005 *

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