Smart space/frequency division multiple access

Beamforming is a classical topic in signal processing but in recent years many researchers have renewed their interest in this technology with a view to increasing the capacity of wireless communication systems. The research reported herein is an example of this endeavor.;We consider a hybrid space/frequency division multiple access system.;Our initial application was to a LEO satellite system. We have found through a simulation of our multiple access protocol that the system performance approaches that for an Erlang B system in terms of throughput and blocking probability. We also allow for user mobility and for nominal values we find that the probability of a dropped call is at most 0.19%. We allow for an overlap between group beams and thus a soft handoff procedure is incorporated to aid the performance of the multiple access system. Our simulation results to-date are restricted to a frequency reuse factor of two which doubles frequency division capacity through space division multiple access. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...