Antenna array

About: Antenna array is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 26971 publications have been published within this topic receiving 356254 citations.

Antenna diversity in mobile communications

Abstract: The conditions for antenna diversity action are investigated. In terms of the fields, a condition is shown to be that the incident field and the far field of the diversity antenna should obey (or nearly obey) an orthogonality relationship. The role of mutual coupling is central, and it is different from that in a conventional array antenna. In terms of antenna parameters, a sufficient condition for diversity action for a certain class of high gain antennas at the mobile, which approximates most practical mobile antennas, is shown to be zero (or low) mutual resistance between elements. This is not the case at the base station, where the condition is necessary only. The mutual resistance condition offers a powerful design tool, and examples of new mobile diversity antennas are discussed along with some existing designs.

Spatial Diversity in Radars—Models and Detection Performance

Abstract: Inspired by recent advances in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications, this proposal introduces the statistical MIMO radar concept To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that the statistical MIMO is being proposed for radar The fundamental difference between statistical MIMO and other radar array systems is that the latter seek to maximize the coherent processing gain, while statistical MIMO radar capitalizes on the diversity of target scattering to improve radar performance Coherent processing is made possible by highly correlated signals at the receiver array, whereas in statistical MIMO radar, the signals received by the array elements are uncorrelated Radar targets generally consist of many small elemental scatterers that are fused by the radar waveform and the processing at the receiver, to result in echoes with fluctuating amplitude and phase It is well known that in conventional radar, slow fluctuations of the target radar cross section (RCS) result in target fades that degrade radar performance By spacing the antenna elements at the transmitter and at the receiver such that the target angular spread is manifested, the MIMO radar can exploit the spatial diversity of target scatterers opening the way to a variety of new techniques that can improve radar performance This paper focuses on the application of the target spatial diversity to improve detection performance The optimal detector in the Neyman–Pearson sense is developed and analyzed for the statistical MIMO radar It is shown that the optimal detector consists of noncoherent processing of the receiver sensors' outputs and that for cases of practical interest, detection performance is superior to that obtained through coherent processing An optimal detector invariant to the signal and noise levels is also developed and analyzed In this case as well, statistical MIMO radar provides great improvements over other types of array radars

Transmit beamforming for physical-layer multicasting

Abstract: This paper considers the problem of downlink transmit beamforming for wireless transmission and downstream precoding for digital subscriber wireline transmission, in the context of common information broadcasting or multicasting applications wherein channel state information (CSI) is available at the transmitter. Unlike the usual "blind" isotropic broadcasting scenario, the availability of CSI allows transmit optimization. A minimum transmission power criterion is adopted, subject to prescribed minimum received signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) at each of the intended receivers. A related max-min SNR "fair" problem formulation is also considered subject to a transmitted power constraint. It is proven that both problems are NP-hard; however, suitable reformulation allows the successful application of semidefinite relaxation (SDR) techniques. SDR yields an approximate solution plus a bound on the optimum value of the associated cost/reward. SDR is motivated from a Lagrangian duality perspective, and its performance is assessed via pertinent simulations for the case of Rayleigh fading wireless channels. We find that SDR typically yields solutions that are within 3-4 dB of the optimum, which is often good enough in practice. In several scenarios, SDR generates exact solutions that meet the associated bound on the optimum value. This is illustrated using measured very-high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber line (VDSL) channel data, and far-field beamforming for a uniform linear transmit antenna array.

Deconstructing multiantenna fading channels

Abstract: Accurate and tractable channel modeling is critical to realizing the full potential of antenna arrays in wireless communications. Current approaches represent two extremes: idealized statistical models representing a rich scattering environment and parameterized physical models that describe realistic scattering environments via the angles and gains associated with different propagation paths. However, simple rules that capture the effects of scattering characteristics on channel capacity and diversity are difficult to infer from existing models. We propose an intermediate virtual channel representation that captures the essence of physical modeling and provides a simple geometric interpretation of the scattering environment. The virtual representation corresponds to a fixed coordinate transformation via spatial basis functions defined by fixed virtual angles. We show that in an uncorrelated scattering environment, the elements of the channel matrix form a segment of a stationary process and that the virtual channel coefficients are approximately uncorrelated samples of the underlying spectral representation. For any scattering environment, the virtual channel matrix clearly reveals the two key factors affecting capacity: the number of parallel channels and the level of diversity. The concepts of spatial zooming and aliasing are introduced to provide a transparent interpretation of the effect of antenna spacing on channel statistics and capacity. Numerical results are presented to illustrate various aspects of the virtual framework.

Network coordination for spectrally efficient communications in cellular systems

Abstract: In this article we consider network coordination as a means to provide spectrally efficient communications in cellular downlink systems. When network coordination is employed, all base antennas act together as a single network antenna array, and each mobile may receive useful signals from nearby base stations. Furthermore, the antenna outputs are chosen in ways to minimize the out-of-cell interference, and hence to increase the downlink system capacity. When the out-of-cell interference is mitigated, the links can operate in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime. This enables the cellular network to enjoy the great spectral efficiency improvement associated with using multiple antennas