The evolution of base station antennas for mobile communications

This paper gives a general overview of the design of base station antennas for mobile communications. It explains underlying theoretical and practical implementation aspects in mobile communication networks of today and the future. In the first part the fundamental parameters of a base station antenna are discussed in the context of radio network design. In particular we discuss parameters such as gain, radiation patterns, frequency bands and power handling and put them in the context of cell planning, propagation and capacity. In the final parts of the paper we give an overview of the underlying theory of diversity and MIMO systems.© 2007 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. QC 20120217