A space division multiple access radio communication system and method for allocating channels therein

摘要

In the preferred embodiment, a Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) radio communication system (100) utilises a base station (101) having a plurality of antenna elements (103) used to transmit and receive to multiple radio communication devices (107, 109) on a same frequency and time channel. A different set of beam forming weights is applied to communications for each radio communication device (107, 109) in such a way as to minimize the interference between the radio communication devices signals. A set of distance metrics is calculated utilizing the sets of weights for each pair of radio communication units sharing a channel. When any distant metric is less than a pre determined threshold value, one of the radio communication devices (107, 109) is reallocated to a new channel or a handover instruction is performed.