Little Wireless and Smart

Antennas

Jack H. Winters

jwinters@motia.com

2/26/04

Slide 1 February 26, 2004

 OUTLINE

• Smart antennas
• Implementation issues
• Appliqué
• Conclusions

Slide 2 February 26, 2004

 Smart Antennas for WLANs

Smart
Antenna AP

Smart
Antenna AP

Interference
Smart Antennas can significantly improve the performance of WLANs
• TDD operation (only need smart antenna at access point or terminal for performance improvement
in both directions)
• Interference suppression ⇒ Improve system capacity and throughput
– Supports aggressive frequency re-use for higher spectrum efficiency, robustness in the ISM band (microwave
ovens, outdoor lights)
• Higher antenna gain ⇒ Extend range (outdoor coverage)
• Multipath diversity gain ⇒ Improve reliability
• MIMO (multiple antennas at AP and laptop) ⇒ Increase data rates

Slide 3 February 26, 2004

 Implementation Issues
Switched Multibeam Antenna Adaptive Antenna Array
SIGNAL
SIGNAL

BEAMFORMER
BEAM SIGNAL SIGNAL
SELECT OUTPUT OUTPUT

INTERFERENCE

BEAMFORMER
INTERFERENCE
WEIGHTS

Smart antenna is a multibeam or adaptive antenna array that tracks the wireless
environment to significantly improve the performance of wireless systems
Adaptive arrays in any environment provide:
• Antenna gain of M
• Suppression of M-1 interferers

In a multipath environment, they also provide:

• M-fold multipath diversity gain
• With M Tx antennas (MIMO), M-fold data rate increase in same channel with same total transmit power

Slide 4 February 26, 2004

 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Radio

 With M transmit and M receive antennas, can provide M independent channels, to increase data rate M-fold
with no increase in total transmit power (with sufficient multipath) – only an increase in DSP
– Indoors – up to 150-fold increase in theory
– Outdoors – 8-12-fold increase typical
 Measurements (e.g., AT&T) show 4x data rate & capacity increase in all mobile & indoor/outdoor
environments (4 Tx and 4 Rx antennas)
– 216 Mbps 802.11a (4X 54 Mbps)
– 1.5 Mbps EDGE
– 19 Mbps WCDMA

Slide 5 February 26, 2004

 WEIGHT GENERATION TECHNIQUES
For Smart Antenna: Need to identify desired signal and
distinguish it from interference

•
• ∑
•

Weight
Generation

Blind (no demod): MRC – Maximize output power

Interference suppression – CMA, power inversion, power
out-of-band

Non-Blind (demod): Training sequence/decision directed reference signal

MIMO needs non-blind, with additional sequences

Slide 6 February 26, 2004

 Digital vs. Analog Implementation

• Analog Advantages:
• Digital requires M complete RF chains, including M A/D and D/A's,
versus 1 A/D and D/A for analog, plus substantial digital signal
processing
• The cost is much higher for digital
• An appliqué approach is possible - digital requires a complete
baseband

• Digital Advantages:
• Slightly higher gain in Rayleigh fading (as more accurate weights
can be generated)
• Temporal processing can be added to each antenna branch much
easier than with analog, for higher gain with delay spread
• Modification for MIMO (802.11n) is easier than with analog

Slide 7 February 26, 2004

 Appliqué

Wireless
Transceiver

RF RF Baseband/MAC
Appliqué Processor Processor,
(Spatial
processing Host Interface
only)

• Conforms to 802.11 standard (blind beamforming with MRC)

• Appliqué configuration requires minimal modifications to legacy
designs

Slide 8 February 26, 2004

 Smart Antenna WiFi
(PCMCIA Reference Design)

Appliqué Architecture Plug-and-Play to legacy designs

PCMCIA - CARDBUS Interface

Legacy Transceiver

Baseband/MAC RF Motia
Smart Antenna
Processor Processor
RF Chip
Partners: Intersil/Globespan,
Maxim/TI, RFMD, Atmel

Slide 9 February 26, 2004

 802.11b Packet Structure

Time permits weight generation

20
µs
96 symbol Short Preamble MPDU
Preamble SFD PHY H Data from MAC
56 Barker 16 Barker 24 Barker Barker
BPSK BPSK QPSK BPSK/QPSK
CCK 5.5/11Mbps

192 symbol Long Preamble MPDU

Preamble SFD PHY H Data from MAC
128 Barker 16 Barker 48 Barker Barker
BPSK BPSK BPSK BPSK/QPSK
(CCK 5.5/11Mbps)

Slide 10 February 26, 2004

 802.11b Performance with Fading

Achieves a 12 to 14 dB gain over a single

antenna
Performance Comparison - All four data rate
0.8

0.7

802.11 spec
0.6 11Mbps Baseline
2Mbps Baseline
5.5Mbps Baseline
0.5 1Mbps Baseline
11Mbps 1-ant
5.5Mbps 1-ant
FER

0.4 2Mbps 1-ant

1Mbps 1-ant
Poly. (1Mbps Baseline)
0.3
Poly. (2Mbps Baseline)
Poly. (5.5Mbps Baseline)
Poly. (11Mbps Baseline)
Expon. (11Mbps 1-ant)
0.2
Expon. (5.5Mbps 1-ant)
Expon. (2Mbps 1-ant)
Expon. (1Mbps 1-ant)
0.1

-0.1845x
y= 4.1054e
0
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Theoretical for short packet SNR(dB)

Slide 11 February 26, 2004

 802.11b Beamforming Gains with 4
Antennas

Performance Gain over a Single Antenna in a

Rayleigh Fading Channel

2 Antenna Adaptive Adaptive Theoretical

Selection One Side Both Sides Bound Both
Sides
6.1 dB 12.8 dB 18.0 dB 22.2 dB

2X to 3X Range + Uniform 3X to 4X Range + Uniform

Coverage Coverage

Slide 12 February 26, 2004

 802.11n

 Requirements for 802.11n:

– >100 Mbps in MAC
– >3 bits/sec/Hz
– Backward compatible with all 802.11 standards
 Requires MAC changes and may require MIMO:
– 4X4 system (?)
 Next standards meeting in Orlando

Slide 13 February 26, 2004

802.11n Process

Slide 14 February 26, 2004

 Summary and Conclusions

 Currentresearch is finding ways to implement

smart antennas in a variety of commercial
systems:
– Reusing same silicon where possible to reduce cost
– Minimizing modifications to existing systems
– Staying within the standards
– Meeting each system’s unique requirements

Slide 15 February 26, 2004