Patent ID: 8717251

Claim:
An antenna apparatus for a wireless communication system, the apparatus comprising: a first directional antenna being arranged to have a first directional beam covering a first angular sector; a second directional antenna being arranged to have a directional second beam covering a second angular sector that neighbours the first angular sector, the first directional beam and the second directional beam at least partially overlapping; and a third directional antenna being arranged to have a third directional beam covering a third angular sector, wherein the first directional beam has a first polarization (p 1 ), the second directional beam also has the first polarization (p 1 ), the third directional beam has a second polarization p 2 , wherein p 1 and p 2 are at least substantially orthogonal, the phase center of the first directional antenna is located within a circle having a radius of less than about 4 times lamda, wherein lamda is a mean wavelength in an operating frequency band of the antenna apparatus, the phase center of the second directional antenna is located within said circle, the phase center of the third directional antenna is not located within said circle, the distance between the phase center of the first directional antenna and the phase center of the second directional antenna is less than the diameter of said circle, and the distance between the phase center of the first directional antenna and the phase center of the third directional antenna is greater than the diameter of said circle.