(Source: NPTEL)

Smart Antenna Techniques

Antenna systems that can automatically adapt their beam pattern or antenna characteristics to the
reception conditions are usually denoted as adaptive, intelligent or smart antennas.
They can adaptively change their beam patterns or antenna characteristics to such a way that
reception condition will be facilitated or to get good signal to noise ratio with more signal power
and less interference.
Mechanism in RF front end hardware architecture helps antenna to form beam pattern.
Beam forming is accomplished by an array of antenna elements which are affected by individual
complex weight vectors or phase shifts.
In general, these systems are applied at the base station because it is transmit beam forming in
conventional ways. It involves lot of signal processing, control in the hardware and power
consumption.