A New Business Dimension: SDMA and Intelligent Antennas

Abstract

Space division multiple access (SDMA) is a promising technique useful for increasing capacity, reducing interference and improving overall wireless communication link quality. With a large-scale penetration expected for wireless Internet, the radio link will require significant reduction in cost and increase in capacity, benefits that the proper exploitation of the spatial dimension can offer. Market opportunities with SDMA are significant, as a number of companies have been recently formed to bring products based on this new concept to the wireless marketplace. The approach to SDMA is broad, ranging from "switched-beam techniques" to "adaptive antennas." Basically the technique employs antenna arrays and digital signal processing to achieve the necessary increases incapacity and quality needed in the wireless world.