Smart cell sectorization for third generation CDMA systems

Smart antennas are a powerful means to provide the increased bandwidth efficiency needed to deliver advanced third generation (3G) interactive multimedia services anywhere and anytime. In this paper we focus on the development of smart antennas located at the base stations of a code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular system. First, we review the main characteristics of antenna array systems and highlight some issues related to the inclusion of smart antennas in a 3G CDMA system. A classification of the proposed beamforming techniques and a discussion on the advantages and drawbacks of smart antennas are provided. Then, we introduce an original smart antenna technique based on rotation and resizing of the available sectors much simpler than common smart antennas based on beamforming techniques addressing a specific user. We discuss on the impact of the proposed technique in the base station architecture. Finally, we provide simulation results in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach and to relate transmission performance to system parameters. It turns out that the smart sectorization technique provides significant capacity improvements under statistically uniform user distribution (up to about 80 per cent for data traffic). Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.