Antenna arrays for CDMA systems with multipath

Abstract

A major advantage of spread-spectrum communication systems is their ability to exploit the multipath structure of the received signal. Different paths can be characterized by their time delays, attenuations, and angles of arrival. A standard RAKE receiver estimates the path delays and attenuations and coherently combines different path signals to mitigate the effects of multipath. A method of exploiting the spatial properties of the multipath environment using multiple element antenna arrays is proposed. Both array vectors and time structure of the multipath channel are estimated using the special code structure of CDMA systems.<>