Adaptive Equalizers in Smart Antenna Systems

Abstract

The massive expansion of mobile communications over the recent years has meant that telecommunications companies continually need to increase the capacity and coverage of their networks to keep up with demand. This has required more base station antennas to be erected, resulting in increased costs and visual pollution. Smart antenna systems have gained increased interest as they promise to provide significant increases in system capacity and performance, and greater coverage, meaning less base stations are needed to cover the same area compared to conventional antennas. The increase in demand for fast data transmission rates in today’s society leads to greater inter-symbol interference (ISI) in the received signal, due to multipath propagation. Adaptive equalizers can be used to periodically estimate the communication channel and then perform equalization to reduce the effects of ISI.Smart antennas have promised to provide significant increases in system capacity and performance in wireless communication systems[1]. In turn, this leads to increased revenue for the telecommunications companies and also a reduction in dropped and blocked calls. Other benefits include greater coverage, meaning less base stations are needed to cover the same area compared to conventional antennas. For these reasons, smart antennas have gained greater interest over the recent years