Smart Antenna Designs

Abstract Smart antenna technologies are vital candidates to advance fifth generation (5G) wireless communication system owing to their merits of large capacity, big signal range, strong anti‐interference ability, flexible beam‐scanning control, and easy accessibility of point‐to‐point communications. By adopting smart signal processing algorithms, smart antennas are advantageous over others with electronically alterable radiation patterns and convenient beam‐scanning as required. Generally speaking, a smart antenna system consists of three components: the antenna, the beamforming network, and the signal processing unit with related beamforming algorithms. The purpose of this article is to review and summarize the existing works in these three parts. In the first part, the basic principles, the types, and the advantages of smart antennas are introduced. The recent development of smart antenna systems and related intelligent algorithms are presented in the second part. The third part includes the application of artificial intelligence in the design of smart antennas, the metamaterial‐based smart antennas, and the future of smart antennas. Judging from the current level in this field, it is believed that smart antennas will play a crucial role in driving the realization of the smart home and city, promoting the future communication systems, the Internet of things, the autonomous vehicles, etc.