TY - JOUR
T1 - Radio Frequency Beamforming Based on a Complex Domain Frontend
AU - Peng, Zhengyu
AU - Chen, Jialong
AU - Dong, Yazhou
AU - Zhang, Bin
AU - Qiao, Shan
AU - Ye, Dexin
AU - Huangfu, Jiangtao
AU - Sun, Yongzhi
AU - Li, Changzhi
AU - Ran, Lixin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - The state-of-the-art phased array-based digital beamforming systems suffer from disadvantages of high power consumption, high cost, and system complexity due to the massive use of transmitter/receiver (T/R) modules and high-speed digital and digital'analog mixed devices. In this paper, we point out that by proposing a new concept "complex domain" radio frequency (RF) frontend, the relatively slowly changed waveform delay information required to accomplish adaptive beamforming can be separated from wideband RF signals, based on which a self-contained beamforming system can be implemented with a low-speed baseband. By introducing vector RF multipliers in the proposed frontend, the amplitude and phase of RF signals can be simultaneously controlled by the real and imaginary parts of complex numbers, such that beamforming algorithms derived in complex domain can be directly applied without any form of transformation. By doing so, the massive use of conventional T/R modules and high-speed baseband devices can be avoided. Theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration based on commercial components have validated the proposed approach. Our method is able to significantly simplify the realization and decrease the cost of wideband digital beamforming systems, and can be widely used in low cost, power efficient beamforming applications.
AB - The state-of-the-art phased array-based digital beamforming systems suffer from disadvantages of high power consumption, high cost, and system complexity due to the massive use of transmitter/receiver (T/R) modules and high-speed digital and digital'analog mixed devices. In this paper, we point out that by proposing a new concept "complex domain" radio frequency (RF) frontend, the relatively slowly changed waveform delay information required to accomplish adaptive beamforming can be separated from wideband RF signals, based on which a self-contained beamforming system can be implemented with a low-speed baseband. By introducing vector RF multipliers in the proposed frontend, the amplitude and phase of RF signals can be simultaneously controlled by the real and imaginary parts of complex numbers, such that beamforming algorithms derived in complex domain can be directly applied without any form of transformation. By doing so, the massive use of conventional T/R modules and high-speed baseband devices can be avoided. Theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration based on commercial components have validated the proposed approach. Our method is able to significantly simplify the realization and decrease the cost of wideband digital beamforming systems, and can be widely used in low cost, power efficient beamforming applications.
KW - Beamforming
KW - Nulling antennas
KW - Phased array
KW - Radio frequency frontend
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959453109&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TMTT.2015.2504446
DO - 10.1109/TMTT.2015.2504446
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84959453109
VL - 64
SP - 289
EP - 298
JO - IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
JF - IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
SN - 0018-9480
IS - 1
M1 - 7360951
ER -