Optimization of Demand Hotspot Capacities using Switched Multi-Element Antenna Equipped Small Cells

This paper presents switched Multi-Element Antennas (MEAs) as a simple, yet effective, method of enhancing the performance of small cell heterogeneous networks and compensating for the small cell base station sub-optimal placement. The switched MEA system is a low-cost system which enables the small cell to dynamically direct its transmission power toward locations of high user density, in other words demand hotspots. Our simulation results show that small cell base stations equipped with switched MEA systems offer greater performance than base stations equipped with omni-directional antennas in terms of both the number of users that can be served (and hence offloaded from the macrocell network) and in terms of overall network capacity. We also compare the performance of the switched MEA with fixed directional antennas and show that fixed-directional antennas can only outperform the switched MEA if the misalignment between their direction of transmission and the direction to the demand hotspot is less than 22.5 degrees.