Beam switching antenna for small cell applications

This article presents a novel beam switching antenna design for Small Cell applications. The proposed antenna comprises five dual-polarized dipole antenna sets, two RF switching circuit boards and one hardware control circuit board. The proposed antenna can provide wide operating band covering the 2300–2700 MHz band, and has 31 radiation pattern combinations at +45/−45° polarization individually and has dual RF ports to support 2 × 2 MIMO system. This antenna has a low profile of 76 mm, and the whole size is 200 × 200 × 76 mm3 that can easily mount on indoor ceiling.