On the analysis of switched-beam antennas for the W-CDMA downlink

Smart antennas are widely recognized as an enabling technology for addressing the demand of future wireless network capacity when employed in place of traditional fixed-coverage sector antennas. Furthermore, switched-beam antenna systems offer a robust implementation against multipath propagation effects and reduced complexity that is inherent with fully adaptive implementations. This paper introduces a simple closed-form expression for evaluating the capacity increase of W-CDMA cellular networks employing switched-beam antennas. The expression incorporates the effect of practical antenna patterns and the impact of multipath scattering on code orthogonality, as well as that of pilot signal power. The results show that a reduction in downlink interference of approximately 6 dB can be achieved by installing an eight-beam antenna system in a 120° sector configuration when representative values of these parameters are taken into account.