What is a Smart Antenna?
Smart Antennas, also known as multiple
antennas, adaptive array antennas, and so on is used to increase the
efficiency in digital wireless communication systems. It works by taking
the advantage of the diversity effect at the transceiver of the
wireless system that is the source and the destination. The term
diversity effect refers to the transmission and reception of multiple
radio frequencies that are used to decrease the error during data
communication and also to increase data speed between the source and the
destination.
This type of technology has already
found its significance in most of the wireless communication systems as
special antenna arrays are used with signal processing algorithms which
can easily locate and track the different wireless targets such as
mobiles. It is also used to calculate the beam forming vectors and the
direction of arrival [DOA] of the signal.
Difference between Conventional Antenna and Smart Antenna
The main difference is related with the
way both the systems deal with the problems caused by multipath wave
propagation.
