ORIENTATION-ROBUST OPERATION OF TRI-POLARIZED ANTENNA ARRAY

A wireless communication device (10; 100) performs wireless transmissions via an antenna array of the wireless communication device (10; 100). The antenna array comprises multiple antenna elements with a first polarization, a second polarization, and a third polarization. For at least some of the wireless transmissions, the wireless communication device (10; 100) performs beamforming processing by, for the first polarization, weighting antenna signals each corresponding to a respective one of the multiple antenna elements by a first beamforming vector, for the second polarization, weighting antenna signals each corresponding to a respective one of the multiple antenna elements by a second beamforming vector, and for the third polarization, weighting antenna signals each corresponding to a respective one of the multiple antenna elements by a third beamforming vector. The first beamforming vector, the second beamforming vector, and the third beamforming vector result in spatial variations of an array factor of the antenna array which are reduced as compared to performing the beamforming processing of the signals without weighting the signals.