Smart antenna system performance / Mohd Farid Uyop

Over the last few years, the number of subscribers to wireless services has increased enormously at an explosive rate. This ever growing demand for wireless communications services is constantly increasing the need for better coverage, improved capacity and higher quality service. Using the approach of switched beam antenna system, an intelligent sector synthesis of varying azimuth and beamwidth can be established. By doing so, traffic load balancing can be achieved and headroom for the growth of more traffic can be created. The performance and feasibility of smart antenna for cellular radio systems is investigated. The system is believed to be the solution for high capacity system. MATLAB simulation is used to compare the capacity among omni directional, 3 sector ( 120°) and 12-swi tched beam smart antenna system. The project also studies the use of switched beam smart antenna system in cellular communication system for reducing co-channel interference. The C/I performances are analyzed and results are compared with those obtained when omni and 3 sector antenna are used in base station. The switched beam smart system can improve both C/I ratio by 6 dB and trunk efficiency. The C/I under different pathloss exponent and reuse factor are also compared within these systems. Then the trunking efficiencies among these systems are also compared. The result shows, that smart antenna does support reasonable C/I ratio, and the highest trunking efficiency.