Beam Pattern Scanning (BPS) versus Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) and Space-Time Trellis Coding (STTC)

In this paper, Beam Pattern Scanning (BPS), a transmit diversity technique, is compared with two well known transmit diversity techniques, space-time block coding (STBC) and space-time trellis coding (STTC). In BPS (also called beam pattern oscillation), controlled time varying weight vectors are applied to the antenna array elements mounted at the base station (BS). This creates a small movement in the antenna array pattern directed toward the desired user. In rich scattering environments, this small beam pattern movement creates an artificial fast fading channel. The receiver is designed to exploit time diversity benefits of the fast fading channel. Via the application of simple combining techniques, BPS improves the probability-of-error performance and network capacity with minimal cost and complexity. In this work, to highlight the potential of the BPS, we compare BPS and Space-Time Coding (i.e., STBC and STTC) schemes. The comparisons are in terms of their complexity, system physical dimension, network capacity, probability-of-error performance, and spectrum efficiency. It is shown that BPS leads to higher network capacity and performance with a smaller antenna dimension and complexity with minimal loss in spectrum efficiency. This identifies BPS as a promising scheme for future wireless communications with smart antennas.