Beamforming - Beamforming Techniques

Beamforming Techniques

To change the directionality of the array. When transmitting, a beamformer controls the phase and relative amplitude of the signal at each transmitter, in order to create a pattern of constructive and destructive interference in the wavefront. When receiving, information from different sensors is combined in a way where the expected pattern of radiation is preferentially observed.

For example in sonar, to send a sharp pulse of underwater sound towards a ship in the distance, simply transmitting that sharp pulse from every sonar projector in an array simultaneously fails because the ship will first hear the pulse from the speaker that happens to be nearest the ship, then later pulses from speakers that happen to be the further from the ship. The beamforming technique involves sending the pulse from each projector at slightly different times (the projector closest to the ship last), so that every pulse hits the ship at exactly the same time, producing the effect of a single strong pulse from a single powerful projector. The same thing can be carried out in air using loudspeakers, or in radar/radio using antennas.

In passive sonar, and in reception in active sonar, the beamforming technique involves combining delayed signals from each hydrophone at slightly different times (the hydrophone closest to the target will be combined after the longest delay), so that every signal reaches the output at exactly the same time, making one loud signal, as if the signal came from a single, very sensitive hydrophone. Receive beamforming can also be used with microphones or radar antennas.

With narrow-band systems the time delay is equivalent to a "phase shift", so in this case the array of antennas, each one shifted a slightly different amount, is called a phased array. A narrow band system, typical of radars, is one where the bandwidth is only a small fraction of the centre frequency. With wide band systems this approximation no longer holds, which is typical in sonars.

In the receive beamformer the signal from each antenna may be amplified by a different "weight." Different weighting patterns (e.g., Dolph-Chebyshev) can be used to achieve the desired sensitivity patterns. A main lobe is produced together with nulls and sidelobes. As well as controlling the main lobe width (the beam) and the sidelobe levels, the position of a null can be controlled. This is useful to ignore noise or jammers in one particular direction, while listening for events in other directions. A similar result can be obtained on transmission.

For the full mathematics on directing beams using amplitude and phase shifts, see the mathematical section in phased array.

Beamforming techniques can be broadly divided into two categories:

• conventional (fixed or switched beam) beamformers
• adaptive beamformers or phased array
  • Desired signal maximization mode
  • Interference signal minimization or cancellation mode

Conventional beamformers use a fixed set of weightings and time-delays (or phasings) to combine the signals from the sensors in the array, primarily using only information about the location of the sensors in space and the wave directions of interest. In contrast, adaptive beamforming techniques generally combine this information with properties of the signals actually received by the array, typically to improve rejection of unwanted signals from other directions. This process may be carried out in either the time or the frequency domain.

As the name indicates, an adaptive beamformer is able to automatically adapt its response to different situations. Some criterion has to be set up to allow the adaption to proceed such as minimising the total noise output. Because of the variation of noise with frequency, in wide band systems it may be desirable to carry out the process in the frequency domain.

Beamforming can be computationally intensive. Sonar phased array has a data rate low enough that it can be processed in real-time in software, which is flexible enough to transmit and/or receive in several directions at once. In contrast, radar phased array has a data rate so high that it usually requires dedicated hardware processing, which is hard-wired to transmit and/or receive in only one direction at a time. However, newer field programmable gate arrays are fast enough to handle radar data in real-time, and can be quickly re-programmed like software, blurring the hardware/software distinction.