Vertical Sectorization Using Beam Steering in Cellular Communication Systems

Nowadays, the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a new technological marvel. However, its realization imposes a tremendous request on the capacity of the access network. In this paper, vertical sectorization which is recognized as a potential way to increase the capacity for cellular wireless communication systems is studied. Unlike the traditional method which uses two antenna arrays with different machine downtilts to serve the inner and outer sector, we use electrical beam steering as the basic means for vertical sectorization, for which the critical step is to formulate appropriate vertical beam patterns. The pattern synthesis problem is then formulated as a convex optimization problem with the objective of covering the destination sector while interfere as less as possible to the adjacent sectors. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance, where different realization options are considered and analyzed. Results show that the proposed scheme combined with fractional frequency reuse can remarkably increase the system performance.