Smart Antenna Test Bed Design And Implementation

With the rapid development of wireless communication technology, the need to rely on wired communications has decreased, thereby allowing people greater freedom. Compared to the single voice communication services of the past, the demand for high quality wireless services such as, multimedia data exchange, internet access, has pushed development forward. Due to the increased demands, user capacity has become insufficient and quality of service has suffered. Smart antenna technology is the optimal solution to resolve this. However, it is still in the research stage. Lots of experiments need to be performed and verified to match the theoretical results. Relying only on simulations are not reliable without practical experimentation. In this case, a set of efficient and low cost test beds will be developed to meet this end.The steps taken are as follows:1. An in-depth analysis and research was undertaken based on smart antennas theory.2. We designed several modules which consisted of a four-channel test platform. The work is broken down into the following four parts:·Designed a Wilkinson power divider with Agilent Advanced Design System. Quadrature modulators, mainly focusing on digital control.·For the Digital to Analogue Converter, designed the interface circuits and minimized the noise, which improved the stability of the modulators.·We also designed a typical patch antenna array as radiation units.·On-chip-system controller is programmed for Digital Beam Forming and LCD displays.3. All the modules mentioned above were combined to complete the test platform.4. The platform was put into test.The result of experiment demonstrated that the beam is very similar to our theoretical analysis result. With further research and improvements, the results achieved will be invaluable.