The rapid growth in mobile communications has led to an increasing demand for wideband high data rate communications services. In recent years the Distributed Antenna System (DAS) has emerged as a promising candidate beyond 3G and 4G mobile communications. Distributed Antenna Systems: Open Architecture for Future Wireless Communications is a comprehensive technical guide that covers the fundamental concepts recent advances and open issues of the DAS. The topic is explored with various key challenges in diverse scenarios including architecture capacity connectivity scalability medium access control scheduling dynamic channel assignment and cross-layer optimization. The primary focus of this book is the introduction of concepts effective protocols system integration performance analysis techniques simulations and experiments and more importantly future research directions in the DAS. The first part of the book introduces DAS fundamentals including channel models and theoretical issues examining the capacity of the DAS with different structures. Concentrating on the MAC and protocols for the DAS the second part of the book includes information on distributed signal processing optimal resource allocation cooperative MAC protocols cross layer design and distributed organization. The third part presents case studies and applications of the DAS including experiment RF engineering and applications. Language: English