Smart antenna

Smart antennas (also known as adaptive array antennas, multiple antennas and recently MIMO) are antenna arrays with smart signal processing algorithms used to identify spatial signal signature such as the direction of arrival (DOA) of the signal, and use it to calculate beamforming vectors, to track and locate the antenna beam on the mobile/target. The antenna could optionally be any sensor.

Smart antenna techniques are used notably in acoustic signal processing, track and scan RADAR, radio astronomy and radio telescopes, and mostly in cellular systems like W-CDMA and UMTS.

Smart antennas have two main functions:
# DOA estimation
# Beamforming

DOA estimation

The smart antenna system estimates the direction of arrival of the signal, using techniques such as MUSIC (Multiple Signal Classification), ESPRIT (Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariant Techniques) algorithms, Matrix Pencil method or one of their derivatives. They involve finding a spatial spectrum of the antenna/sensor array, and calculating the DOA from the peaks of this spectrum. These calculations are computationally intensive.

Matrix Pencil is very efficient in case of real time systems, and under the correlated sources.

Beamforming

Beamforming is the method used to create the radiation pattern of the antenna array by adding constructively the phases of the signals in the direction of the targets/mobiles desired, and nulling the pattern of the targets/mobiles that are undesired/interfering targets.This can be done with a simple FIR tapped delay line filter. The weights of the FIR filter may also be changed adaptively, and used to provide optimal beamforming, in the sense that it reduces the MMSE between the desired and actual beampattern formed. Typical algorithms are the steepest descent, and LMS algorithms [4] .

Types of smart antennas

Two of the main types of smart antennas include switched beam smart antennas and adaptive array smart antennas. Switched beam systems have several available fixed beam patterns. A decision is made as to which beam to access, at any given point in time, based upon the requirements of the system. Adaptive arrays allow the antenna to steer the beam to any direction of interest while simultaneously nulling interfering signals [4] .

In 2008, the United States NTIA began a major effort to assist consumers in the purchase of digital television converter boxes. [http://www.dtv2009.gov/] Through this effort, many people have been exposed to the concept of smart antennas for the first time. In the context of consumer electronics, a "smart antenna" is one that conforms to the EIA/CEA-909 Standard Interface, such as the DX DTA-5000. [http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=DTA5000] [http://www.summitsource.com/dx-antenna-dta5000-tv-smart-antenna-multidirectional-hdtv-digital-uhf-vhf-outdoor-offair-high-definition-local-hd-sylvania-television-reception-aerial-green-zone-part-dta5000-p-6320.html]

Extension of smart antennas

Smart antenna systems are also a defining characteristic of MIMO systems, such as the proposed IEEE 802.11n standard. Conventionally, a smart antenna is a unit of a wireless communication system and performs spatial signal processing with multiple antennas. Multiple antennas can be used at either the transmitter or receiver. Recently, the technology has been extended to use the multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver; such a system is called a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. As extended Smart Antenna technology, MIMO supports spatial information processing, in the sense that conventional research on Smart Antennas has focused on how to provide a beamforming advantage by the use of spatial signal processing in wireless channels. Spatial information processing includes spatial information coding such as Spatial multiplexing and Diversity Coding, as well as beamforming.

References

# http://www.stanford.edu/group/sarg/ : Smart Antenna Research Group.
# http://www.mprg.org : Virginia Tech, Mobile and Portable & Radio research group
# http://www.wel.atr.jp/~sun/SmartAntennas.html
# Frank B. Gross, "Smart Antennas for Wireless Communications with Matlab", McGraw-Hill, 2005
# http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/smart_antennas/

ee also

* Antenna (radio)
* Array processing
* Phased array
* CEA-909