PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT USING AN ARRAY

Approaches for performance improvement

1. Reduction in Delay Spread and Multipath Fading

 Use of Diversity Combining: Diversity combining achieves a reduction in fading by
increasing the signal level based upon the level of signal strength at different antennas.
 Combining Delayed Arrivals: Combining signals belonging to different users after
compensating for delays not only leads to reduction in delay spread but also reduces co-
channel interference
 By Nulling Delayed Arrivals
 A frequency-hopping system may also be used for correcting degradation due to fading
2. Reduction in Co-channel Interference
 By forming specialized beams with nulls in the directions of other receivers
3. Arrays in Combination with Other Techniques
 Spatial Diversity and Channel Coding: A combination of channel coding and spatial
diversity (two antennas) scheme provides a better BER
 Diversity Combining and Interference Canceling: An antenna array operating in a
combined mode of diversity combining and interference canceling may be able to cancel
directional interferences and achieve reduction in , thus improving the performance of
the system as well as increasing its capacity.
 Diversity Combining and Adaptive Equalization: Diversity combining is useful for
overcoming the flat fading in mobile communications, whereas the equalizers are
normally used to reduce inter-symbol interferences
4. Spectrum Efficiency and Capacity Improvement: Spectrum efficiency refers to the amount of
traffic a given system with certain spectrum allocation could handle. Channel capacity refers to
the maximum data rate a channel of given bandwidth could sustain.
 Multiple-Beam Antenna Array at the Base Station: spectral efficiency increases as the
number of beams increases.
 Antenna Array at the Base Station Employing CDMA System: By using an array of
antennas for a CDMA system, the number of mobiles a cell may be able to sustain
increases.
5. BER Improvement: An increase in the number of users in a cell normally causes an increase in
the BER. The rate of this increase could be made lower by using an array compared to a single
antenna system.
For Single antenna Probability of error is given below
 Where Q(x) is the standard Q function showing the probability that x>X for a zero mean, unit
variance, Gaussian distributed random variable x, Gis the processing gain of the CDMA system,
K is the number of uses in the cell, , and D is the directivity of the beam of the mult-iantenna
system.
6. Reduction in Outage Probability: Outage probability is the probability of a channel’s being
inoperative due to increased error rate in the received data. It may be caused by co-channel
interference in a mobile communications system. Using an array helps to reduce the outage
probability by decreasing co-channel interference. It decreases as the number of beams used by
a base station for land mobiles increases in a multi-beam adaptive antenna system
7. Increase in Transmission Efficiency: It is also advantageous to use an antenna array at the base
station in transmit mode, the power transmitted by each antenna of the array is much lower
compared to the case where the total power is transmitted by one antenna. These reductions in
transmitted power level using an array allow the use of electronic components of lower power
rating in the transmitting circuitry. This results in a lower system cost, leading to a more efficient
transmission system
8. Dynamic Channel Assignment: The use of an array provides an opportunity to change the cell
boundary and thus to allocate the number of channels in each cell as the demand changes due
to changed traffic situations
9. Reduction in Handoff Rate: When the number of mobiles in a cell exceeds its capacity, cell
splitting is used to create new cells, each with its own base station and new frequency
assignment. A consequence of this is an increased handoff due to reduced cell size. This may be
reduced using an array of antennas. Instead of cell splitting, the capacity is increased by creating
independent beams using more antennas.

10. Cost-Effective Implementation: The use of multiple antennas on direct broadcast satel.lites
leads to a system that is cost effective due to its light weight, reduced power requirements,
flexibility and robustness of antenna design, ease of pattern contr
11. Angular Spreading & it’s impact on performance : Angular spreading refers to a situation where
a transmitted signal gets scattered in the vicinity of the source and a signal arrives at a receiver
within a range of angles. The range of angles becomes smaller as the distance between a mobile
and the base increases.