Applications of antenna arrays to mobile communications. I. Performance improvement, feasibility, and system considerations

TLDR

The demand for wireless mobile communications is growing explosively, and antenna arrays on vehicles, ships, aircraft, satellites, and base stations are expected to play a key role in meeting this demand and enabling affordable portable devices. This paper is the first of a two‑part study that provides a comprehensive, nonspecialist‑level treatment of using antenna arrays to enhance mobile communications efficiency. The authors overview mobile communications and detail how antenna arrays can be applied in land‑mobile, indoor‑radio, and satellite systems, highlighting advantages, performance improvements over single antennas, and feasibility considerations.

Abstract

The demand for wireless mobile communications services is growing at an explosive rate, with the anticipation that communication to a mobile device anywhere on the globe at all times will be available in the near future. An array of antennas mounted on vehicles, ships, aircraft, satellites, and base stations is expected to play an important role in fulfilling the increased demand of channel requirement for these services, as well as for the realization of the dream that a portable communications device the size of a wristwatch be available at an affordable cost for such services. This paper is the first of a two-part study. It provides a comprehensive treatment, at a level appropriate to nonspecialists, of the use of an antenna array to enhance the efficiency of mobile communications systems. It presents an overview of mobile communications as well as details of how an array may be used in various mobile communications systems, including land-mobile, indoor-radio, and satellite-based systems. It discusses advantages of an array of antennas in a mobile communications system, highlights improvements that are possible by using multiple antennas compared to a single antenna in a system, and provides details on the feasibility of antenna arrays for mobile communications applications.