A Unified Approach to Antenna Array Signal Processing

This chapter unifies the principles and analyses of conventional signal processing algorithms for receive-side smart antennas, and compares their performance and numerical complexity. The chapter starts with a brief look at the traditional single-antenna optimum symbol-detector, continues with analyses of conventional smart antenna algorithms, i.e., statistical beamforming (BF) and maximal-ratio combining (MRC), and culminates with an assessment of their recentlyproposed superset known as eigencombining or eigenbeamforming. BF or MRC performance fluctuates with changing propagation conditions, although their numerical complexity remains constant. Maximal-ratio eigencombining (MREC) has been devised to achieve best (i.e., near-MRC) performance for complexity that matches the actual channel conditions. The authors derive MREC outage probability and average error probability expressions applicable for any correlation. Particular cases apply to BF and MRC. These tools and numerical complexity assessments help demonstrate the advantages of MREC versus BF or MRC in realistic scenarios.