Sunday, June 10, 2007

Antenna & Interference in WiMAX

By utilizing AAS and beam steering technologies, WiMAX overcomes interference while boosting range and throughput.
Adaptive Antenna Systems (AAS) use beam-forming technologies to focus the wireless beam between the base station and the subscriber. This reduces the possibility of interference from other broadcasters as the beam runs straight between the two points.
The potential spectrum for WiMAX is 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz among which there may be a lot of interference. One of the simplest remedies to interference is to simply change frequencies to avoid the frequency where interference occurs. Dynamic frequency selection (DFS) does just that. A DFS radio sniffs the airwaves to determine where interference does not occur and selects the open frequency to avoid the frequencies where interference occurs.
Multiple in and multiple out (MIMO) antenna systems work on the same principle. With multiple transmitters and receivers built into the antenna, the transmitter and receiver can coordinate to move to an open frequency if/when interference occurs.
Software defined radios (SDR) use the same strategy to avoid interference. As they are software and not hardware defined, they have the flexibility to dynamically shift frequencies to move away from a congested frequency to an open channel.

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