Investigating antenna positioning, beam width and direction in indoor DAS systems to meet coverage

Abstract

In a wireless communication network, achieving the required signal strength with an efficient use of resources is a huge challenge especially in indoor environments. In an indoor environment, the number of deployed antennas, their location, and beam width affects the signal strength. Directional antennas are used to improve indoor planning in terms of signal strength and power leakage. The paper has two aims, first, to compare the Omnidirectional and directional antennas under certain performance metrics for a given number and position of Omni/Directional antenna. The aim is to analyze the importance of the type of antenna deployed versus the optimization of placement and number of the antenna. Secondly, this paper further focuses on finding an initial solution for the deployment of antennas location number and beam width in order to meet user’s indoor coverage requirements in DAS environment. A proposed algorithm based on the next best choice of antenna activation based on coverage forms an initial solution of the number and position of antennas in an indoor building. Results showed that the directivity might not always outperform the omnidirectional antennas, as the position and number of Omni antennas if chosen efficiently may be better. This highlights the idea that the optimization of the antenna location and number is more important than the type of antenna used.