Design and Testing of a Compact `Semi-Smart' Base Station Antenna in Cellular Networks

This paper presents a physical-level study on improving cellular-network system capacity by using the concept of semi-smart antennas. Practical implementation of the semi-smart antenna technology imposes several technical and environmental requirements on the antenna design. Therefore, novel cylindrically-conformal antenna array has been designed and tested. The new design is simple, robust, light and small in size (low profile), and most importantly, operates efficiently in providing dynamic radiation coverage in the azimuth plane. In comparison to the typical smart-antenna approach, semi-smart antenna technology has proven to be of much lower complexity and has minimal impact on the cellular system architecture.