Total Isotropic Sensitivity Measurement in Switched Beam Antenna Systems

Smart antenna systems (SAS) play an important role in wireless communication systems, especially in rapidly developing fifth-generation (5G) systems. In normal device under test (DUT) applications with SAS, the antenna’s state may change in different external environments in order to obtain higher antenna gains and better connection with the base station, resulting in high uncertainties for over-the-air (OTA) tests using conventional methods. Before evaluating the transceiver performance, additional application programs are necessary to control the DUT, which increases the inconvenience for engineers and makes it impossible to reflect the real usage scenario. This article proposes a new convenient method for total isotropic sensitivity (TIS) measurement of each antenna group in SAS with multiple groups of antennas. This method monitors the status of the antenna systems, and the TIS is calculated from the received signal strength indicator (RSSI). The proposed method is suitable for Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), wide band code division multiple access (WCDMA), long term evolution (LTE), and other wireless communication systems with RSSI report.