Reconfigurable parasitic antennas for compact mobile terminals in multiuser wireless systems

Vlasis I Barousis,Athanasios G Kanatas,Antonis Kalis,Julien Perruisseau-Carrier

doi:10.1186/1687-1499-2012-30

Abstract

Abstract This article considers the exploitation of parasitic antenna arrays in multi-user (MU) wireless communication systems by using their adaptive beamforming capabilities in order to improve the average system throughput. The use of parasitic arrays and especially the electrically steerable passive array radiator (ESPAR) antennas enables the design of terminals with a single RF front-end and reduced antenna dimensions, i.e., lightweight and compact mobile terminals. Although the beamforming capabilities of active element arrays at the receiver have been well investigated in the past, this article highlights the potentials of pattern reconfigurable parasitic arrays based on the beamspace representation of the ESPAR antenna. The advantages of using ESPAR at the receiving terminal are examined both in opportunistic beamforming and in MIMO broadcast channel MU systems, optimizing correspondingly the SNR or the SINR of the forward link.

Highlights

The use of multi-element antenna arrays has proven to be an effective means of turning multipath propagation to an advantage in wireless communication systems, by exploiting the diverse propagation characteristics of multipath components to increase the robustness of communication through diversity techniques, or the capacity of wireless links through spatial multiplexing of multiple symbol-streams
The major contribution of this study is the use of recent developments in reconfigurable parasitic arrays and in the beamspace representation of their patterns, in order to optimize the performance of the forward link in opportunistic beamforming and MIMO broadcast channel MU systems
In the case of Rician channels we examine the enhancement of average network throughput when in addition to the opportunistic beamforming at the base station (BS), switching is performed at the receiver among different radiation patterns having significant antenna gains

Summary

Introduction

The use of multi-element antenna arrays has proven to be an effective means of turning multipath propagation to an advantage in wireless communication systems, by exploiting the diverse propagation characteristics of multipath components to increase the robustness of communication through diversity techniques, or the capacity of wireless links through spatial multiplexing of multiple symbol-streams. The major contribution of this study is the use of recent developments in reconfigurable parasitic arrays and in the beamspace representation of their patterns, in order to optimize the performance of the forward link in opportunistic beamforming and MIMO broadcast channel MU systems.

Results

Conclusion