Abstract

Providing uniformly high capacity in cellular systems is challenging due to fading, path loss, and interference. A partial solution to this problem is the deployment of distributed antenna systems, where transmission points are distributed throughout the cell using coax cable or fiber, instead of being centrally located on a single tower. This article reviews how distributed antenna systems are evolving to provide higher performance on the downlink in cellular systems. Research trends in distributed antennas for the downlink of cellular systems are described along with current progress on their integration into commercial wireless cellular standards. A key observation is that distributed antenna systems are tightly integrated into the cellular architecture, and incorporate physical layer technologies like MIMO communication and multiuser MIMO to provide higher data rates.

Keywords

Distributed antenna systemComputer scienceTelecommunications linkMIMOComputer networkAntenna (radio)Cellular networkMulti-user MIMOInterference (communication)TelecommunicationsElectronic engineeringChannel (broadcasting)Engineering

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Publication Info

Year
2013
Type
article
Volume
51
Issue
4
Pages
161-167
Citations
216
Access
Closed

Social Impact

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

216
OpenAlex
6
Influential
155
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Cite This

Robert W. Heath, Steven J. Peters, Yi Wang et al. (2013). A current perspective on distributed antenna systems for the downlink of cellular systems. IEEE Communications Magazine , 51 (4) , 161-167. https://doi.org/10.1109/mcom.2013.6495775

Identifiers

DOI
10.1109/mcom.2013.6495775

Data Quality

Data completeness: 77%