A smart and low-cost enhanced antenna system for industrial wireless broadband communication

The aim of this paper is to investigate the traditional wireless local area network (LAN) deployment methods, challenges, and proposal of a novel smart antenna technique to mitigate the problems. In this paper, the focus is on the wireless link between cars to the road-side base station or trains to the trackside base station with fixed access point serving multiple mobile clients. A low-cost, highly scalable, long-range, half duplex hybrid smart antenna architecture with capability of direction of arrival (DOA) estimation and adaptive beamforming integration is proposed. The deployment cell size simulation result shows a drastic reduction in the number of equipment needed to cover the same service area as compared to the traditional method. The results will be of great importance for the future wireless deployment in the transportation market, knowing that the installation cost and maintenance cost are a major cost factor.