Smart antenna techniques and their application to wireless ad hoc networks

In this article the use of smart antennas in mobile ad hoc and mesh networks is discussed. We first give a brief overview of smart antenna techniques and describe the issues that arise when applying these techniques in ad hoc networks. We consider ad hoc/mesh networks with directional antennas, beamforming/adaptive antennas, and/or multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) techniques. We then show how the MAC/routing techniques can be modified to get the maximum benefit with smart antennas, while also showing examples of degradation in system performance, rather than improvement, when smart antenna techniques are added to networks with standard MAC/routing techniques.