Space division multiple access (SDMA) field trials. Part 1: Tracking and BER performance

An adaptive antenna testbed for mobile communication applications is briefly described and results from field trials presented. The goal is to provide an experimental demonstration of both transmit and receive digital beamforming supporting SDMA user access. Trials are presented for a typical urban environment with different combinations of user positions and the ability of the employed adaptive algorithm to establish the link and track the channels is investigated alongside the link BER performance. The tracking performance of the adaptive algorithm used for SDMA is also tested for an indoor environment against maximum ratio combining and a fixed grid of beams.