A fully programmable prototype for the experimentation of the SDMA concept and use of smart antennas for UMTS and GSM/DCS1800 networks

This paper describes the development and the first results obtained by Thomson-CSF Communications with a fully programmable prototype for an evaluation of the spatial division multiple access (SDMA) concept and the use of smart antennas. The growing demand for mobile communications requires the use of new advanced technologies which can enhance the capacity of radio communication networks. Among these techniques, adaptive antennas have been acknowledged as the most promising one. This technique consists of using an antenna array at the base station site to improve mobile signal reception and to focus energy toward the same mobile, thus reducing interference in the network. The key factor that determines a given system capacity being the average interference power, this leads to a capacity increase. Another potentiality of adaptive antenna is its ability to reject jammers, which can be used for performing SDMA, where several mobiles are allowed to share the same classical access in a cell, leading again to a capacity increase.