Novel external smart antenna array for IEEE 802.11a wireless LAN applications

Design and simulation of a smart antenna system for 802.11a wireless LAN is proposed. The main advantage of this design is that it is applicable as an external antenna module, regardless of the other parts of the system i.e. the WLAN card. The antenna is a 3×3 planar array of rectangular patches, in the 5.15GHz ∼ 5.35GHz band. The antennas are probe-fed so that they can be connected to separate phase shifters or switches. Suggestions have been made to make use of a minimum number of phase shifters. Simulations include all possible mutual coupling effects. A switched-beam algorithm is applied to single user, double and triple user environment. A minimum 15 dB increase in the received signal gain and 5 dB increase in SIR are achieved. In a reduced mode of the smart array using only 4 phase shifters, at least 3 dB increase is observed in SIR.