Experimental investigations of a new adaptive dual-antenna array for handset applications

This paper presents the design and implementation of a new adaptive dual-antenna array for mitigation of both interference and multipath effects in digital mobile communications at the handset level. This proposed system employs a nonlinear adaptive algorithm in the front end of the receiver to enhance the transmission quality in confined areas. The enhancement is blind since no priori knowledge of spatial signatures or training sequences is required. Furthermore, to obtain a compact antenna array system, a miniaturized shorting postmicrostrip antenna that operates in the 1.9 GHz PCS band is used as a radiating element. Using this microstrip antenna, a new experimental adaptive dual-antenna array prototype was designed and implemented. To examine the expected performance of this approach, experimental measurements were carried out and the measured performances indicate that gain improvement of 7 dB can be achieved by using this approach.