On the spatial separation potential of a uniform linear antenna array

An antenna array located at the base station of a mobile radio cell allows the utilization of adaptive beamforming techniques on both uplink and downlink transmissions to significantly increase system capacity. In this paper a criterion is introduced to quantitatively evaluate the capability of an array to spatially separate users operating in the same channel. Then the dependency of this criterion on parameters like the number of antennas, the antenna spacing or the geometrical orientation of the array axis are investigated for the special case of a uniform linear antenna array (ULA).