An Adaptive Smart Antenna Testbed for WiMAX Radio

In a world where ubiquitous connectivity became more of a necessity then luxury sparsely populated and rural areas remain the least connected areas around the globe. Considering conventional wired or wireless infrastructure will cost billions to implement and maintain. A very attractive solution that has proven improved performance in terms of signal quality, coverage area and connection speed consists of using an adaptive smart antenna system in conjunction with IEEE 802.16 WiMAX. This paper presents the design and development of a testbed to analyze the feasibility of utilizing such novel solution. Though supported by the WiMAX standard, a smart antenna system utilizing this radio technology has not been implemented yet. This design serves as a common flexible platform for testing the system as a whole and in part. The different systempsilas modules, namely, the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation module, the beamforming module and the computer interface have been tested and showed promising results.