The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 12, 2002
Filed:
Sep. 13, 1999
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
Sectorisation has been used in cellular communications networks in order to increase capacity without the need for obtaining new cell sites. However, previously, the increase in the number of main antenna beams provided by a base station transceiver has not produced a commensurate increase in capacity. For example, a hex sectored tricellular network is found to provide an increase in capacity by a factor of only 1.6 over a tri sectored tricellular network despite the fact that twice as many antenna beams are provided. A multiple beam antenna arrangement is described where the increase in capacity is commensurate with the increase in the number of antenna beams provided. In one example, a nine sectored tricellular CMDA network is described which comprises a multiple beam antenna arrangement with six antenna elements each provided as columns. The antenna beams may be orthogonal and a 6×6 Butler matrix beamformer is used which is advantageously loss less. The beamformers may be arranged back to back to allow sharing of power amplifiers to reduce costs and complexity and the number of cables required is reduced by the particular arrangement of beamformer used.