Sectoring of a locally centralized communication system in an indoor environment

Future indoor communication systems will support different services with varying quality demands. Centralized radio resource management (RRM) is suitable for these types of systems. With central control the existing users can be protected and given priority over new allocations. The drawback is generally considered to be increased complexity. By dividing the coverage area into smaller segments using multiple controllers, the computational complexity can be reduced. The price for reduced complexity is lost capacity compared with a single controller system. We introduce sector antennas in a locally centralized radio communication system covering one building floor and investigate their ability to increase the capacity with maintained low complexity. The results show that the capacity can be almost as high for a sectorized system with two central units as for a system using one central unit covering the floor with omnidirectional antennas. The results also indicate how well the studied wireless system can coexist with similar systems located in the vicinity. Sectoring reduces the transmitter powers and therefore improves the performance of closely located wireless networks.