Overview

The CDMA community is aggressively targeting technology based on mobile diversity antennas, a handset-based smart antenna methodology that requires no network modifications but will increase capacity by a factor of two. The idea behind this approach is to combine signals from two separate antennas to reduce the impact of spatial variations in signal strength and thus increase the average data rate available. Mobile diversity antennas can also be used when one needs to put antennas for two unlike services - for instance CDMA for voice and data and GPS for tracking - into a single device.

The CDMA community is leading the way in mobile diversity solutions, and companies such as Qualcomm will introduce commercial ASICs supporting diversity reception in 2003. Likewise, semiconductor startup InnovICs unveiled its diversity technology in May 2002 and aims to improve coverage by 50% and increase cell capacity four times for high data rate signals.

Mobile diversity solutions can be used alone or in combination with smart antennas in the network infrastructure to provide even more impressive capacity gains and improved customer satisfaction through better overall voice and data call performance. Network smart antennas, which do not require any changes to end-user mobile devices, can be embedded in base stations or added to existing networks as appliqué solutions. Such antennas can be deployed on a per-cell-site or per-sector basis in order to alleviate specific or localized capacity issues. Both large and small vendors offer smart antennas for the CDMA marketplace.

Presentations

Mobile Terminal Antenna Diversity Processing, October 1, 2002
By Michael Orr, VP Business Development, Innovics Wireless, Inc.

Mobile Receive Diversity in CDMA2000 - Simulation and Field Test Results, October 1, 2002
By Parag Agashe, Staff Engineer, Qualcomm and Roy Davis, Engineering Director, Qualcomm Inc.

CDMA Capacity Evolution - Mobile Receive Diversity, October 1, 2002
By Adam Gould, CTO, CDMA Nokia Mobile Phones

White Papers

Reverse Link Capacity And Coverage Improvement For CDMA Cellular Systems Using Polarization And Spatial Diversity
By Levent Aydin, Eduardo Esteves and Roberto Padovani, Qualcomm, published by IEEE, 2002
This paper explores the benefits of increased diversity order using spatially separated, polarized antennas at the base station receiver of a CDMA cellular system.

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