Fixed and Mobile Broadband Wireless Access Networks Employing Optically Beam-formed Antennas

Broadband wireless access networks that operate in the millimetre-wave frequency band are envisaged to fulfil the bandwidth requirements of broadband multimedia services. At these frequencies, temporary obstacles and adverse meteorological conditions may drastically impair on the system performance by intercepting the required line-of-sight radio wave propagation, which results in degrading the system. Base station antennas with beamforming capabilities are envisaged to address dynamically changes in the network features and resources in order to overcome the service unavailability arising from man-made and natural impairments. Traditional DSP-based and RF/IF beamforming, which have limited performance for millimetre-wave frequency operation. The OBANET project is aimed to the design, implementation and test of optically beam-formed antennas, which are the most promising alternative to such beamforming approaches, due to the huge bandwidth, low-loss and weight provided by optical fibre devices. In addition, OBANET project aims at designing and testing specific coverage area management strategies as well as their associated technologies for performance optimisation in broadband adaptive broadband wireless access networks in two scenarios: fixed and mobile broadband radio accesses in the 40 GHz.