Oscillating-beam smart antenna arrays and multicarrier systems: achieving transmit diversity, frequency diversity, and directionality

We introduce a novel merger of smart antenna arrays and multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) systems. Here, each group of Q carriers in the MC-CDMA system is applied to its own M-element smart antenna at the base station (BS). The smart antennas are separated by a distance that ensures that signals generated by each smart antenna are independent. Applying proper time-varying phases to array elements of each smart antenna array, the beam pattern is carefully controlled to generate a mainlobe at the position of the intended user and small oscillations in the beam pattern. This beam-pattern oscillation creates a time-varying channel with a controllable coherence time and a time diversity benefit at the receiver. Employing MC-CDMA with the proposed antenna array at the BS, we achieve: 1) directionality, which supports space-division multiple access (SDMA); 2) a time diversity gain; 3) increased capacity and performance via MC-CDMA´s ability to support both CDMA and frequency diversity benefits. Hence, merging MC-CDMA and BS antenna arrays in an innovative fashion, we achieve high performance at the mobile via joint frequency-time diversity, and high network capacity via joint space-code division multiple access.