Wideband beamforming have been widely used in modern radar systems. One of the powerful wideband beamforming techniques that is capable of achieving a high selectivity over a wide bandwidth is the nested array (NA) beamformer. Such a beamformer consists of nested antenna arrays, 2-D spatio-temporal filters, and multirate filterbanks. Speed of operation is bounded by the speed of the hardware implementation. This dissertation presents the use of a systematic methodology for design space exploration of the NA beamformer basic building blocks. The efficient systolic array design in terms of the highest possible clock speed of each block was selected for hardware implementation. The proposed systolic array designs and the conventional designs were implemented in FPGA hardware to verify their functionality and compare their erformance. The implementations results confirm that the proposed systolic array implementations are faster and requires less hardware resources than the published designs. The overall beamformer FPGA implementation is constructed based on the analysis of efficient systolic arrays designs of the beamformer building blocks. The implemented overall structure is then validated to ensure its proper operation. Further, the implementation performance is evaluated in terms of accuracy and error analysis in comparison to the MATLAB simulations. The new methodology is based on the systematic methodology to close the gap between the modern wideband radar I/O rates and the silicon operating speed. This new metodology is applied to the interpolator block as an example. The proposed methodology is simulated and tested using MATLAB object oriented programming (OOP) to ensure the proper operation. / Graduate / 2020-11-17

No description available.

Radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation enables radio astronomical observation in frequency bands that are shared with many modern satellite and ground based devices by filtering out the interference in corrupted bands. The present work documents the development of a beamformer (spatial filter) equipped with RFI mitigation capabilities. The beamformer is intended for systems with antenna arrays designed for large bandwidths. Because array data post processing on large bandwidths would require massive memory space beyond feasible limits, there is a need for a RFI mitigation system capable of doing processing on the data as it arrives in real-time; storing only a data reduced result into long term memory. The real-time system is designed to be implemented on both the FLAG phased array feed (PAF) on the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia, as well as future radio astronomy projects. It will also serve as the anti-jamming component in communications applications developed for the United States office of naval research (ONR). Implemented on a graphical processing unit (GPU), this beamformer demonstrates a working single step filter using nVidia's CUDA technology, technology with high-speed parallelism that makes real-time RFI mitigation possible.

Extremely high data rate demands, and the spectrum scarcity at the microwave bands, make the millimeter wave (mmWave) band a promising solution to satisfy the high data rate demands in wireless networks. The main advantage of moving to the mmWave spectrum is the availability of large bandwidth. Moreover, due to an order of magnitude smaller wavelength of mmWave signals in compared to the conventional bands, many antenna elements can be incorporated in a small size chip to provide high directivity gain both at the transmitter and the receiver sides.Millimeter wave links experience severe vulnerability to the obstacles compared to the conventional sub-6 GHz networks for two main reasons. First, due to the tiny wavelength, mmWave signals can easily be blocked by obstacles in the environment and this causes severe loss. Second, due to the use of directional communications to compensate for the high path-loss (the distance-dependent component of the attenuation), mmWave links are sensitive to blockages that leads to the high probability of beam misalignment and the frequent updating of beamforming vectors. These issues are more challenging in mobile scenarios, in which mobility of the users and obstacles cause frequent re-execution of the beamforming process. Therefore, the tradeoff between the latency of the beamforming process (which latency increases with the number of the re-execution of the beamforming process) and instantaneous user rate is a significant design challenge in mmWave networks. Moreover, to provide adequate coverage and capacity, the density of the base stations in mmWave networks is usually higher than the conventional sub-6 GHz network. This leads to frequent handovers that make maintaining and establishing the mmWave links more challenging. Motivated by the mentioned challenges, this thesis considers the beamforming and handover problems and proposes lightweight joint beamforming and handover methods to guarantee a certain data rate along user trajectory. Specifically, in the first thread of the thesis, inspired by the fundamental properties of the spacial channel response of mmWave links, we propose a beamforming method in mobile mmWave networks. Our analysis reveals that our proposed method is efficient in terms of signaling and computation complexity, power consumption, and throughput in compared to the benchmark.  In the second thread of the thesis, we focus on the handover problem. We formulate the association problem that maximizes the trajectory rate while guarantees a predefined data rate threshold. We then extend our problem to the multi-user dense scenario that the density of the users is higher than the base stations and consider the resource allocation in the association optimization problem. We apply reinforcement learning in order to approximate the solution of the association problem. In general, the main objective of our proposed method is to maximize the sum rates of all the users and minimize the number of the handovers and reduce the probability of the events in which the users' rate becomes less than a predefined threshold. Simulation results confirm that our proposed handover method provides a reliable connection along a trajectory in compared to the benchmarks. / <p>QC 20210407</p>

No description available.

Reduced-control antenna arrays reduce the number of controls required for beamforming while maintaining a given array aperture. A reduced-control array for direction finding (DF), inspired by the concept of compressive sensing (CS), was recently proposed which uses random compression weights for combining antenna-element signals into fewer measurements. However, this compressive array had not been studied in terms of traditional characteristics such as directivity, sidelobe level (SLL) or beamwidth. In this work, random compression weights are shown to be suboptimal and a need for the optimisation of compressive arrays is expressed. Existing codebook optimisation algorithms prove to be the best starting point for the optimisation of compressive arrays, but are computationally complex. A computationally efficient codebook optimisation algorithm is proposed to address this problem, which inspires the compressive-array optimisation algorithm to follow. Compressive antenna arrays are formulated as a generalisation of reduced-control arrays and a framework is presented for their optimisation in terms of SLL. By allowing arbitrary compression weights, compressive arrays are shown to improve on existing reduced-control techniques. A feed network consisting of interconnected couplers and fixed phase shifters is proposed, enabling the implementation of compressive arrays in microwave hardware. The practical feasibility of compressive arrays is illustrated by successfully manufacturing a 3-GHz prototype compressive array with integrated antenna elements. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / PhD / Unrestricted

Les récentes avancées dans le domaine du traitement d'antennes et dans la microélectronique ont fait naître la technologie des antennes intelligentes connue sous le nom de "smart antennas". Considérée comme rupture technologique pour les réseaux sans fil, les systèmes d'antennes intelligentes pourraient répondre aux exigences de plus en plus fortes des applications et services en termes de débit, de capacité et de connectivité. Aujourd'hui, les smart antennas sont exploitées pour développer plusieurs technologies incluant les systèmes de commutation de faisceaux, les antennes adaptatives et les systèmes MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). L'utilisation des antennes MIMO a été reconnue comme une technologie-clé, capable d'accroître considérablement la capacité des réseaux sans fil en exploitant différemment et mieux le spectre radio. Elle fait partie des récents et futurs standards tels que le 3GPP-LTE et le IEEE-802.11n. Dans cette thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés à l'exploitation des techniques multi-antennes dans le contexte des réseaux mobiles. Nous nous sommes focalisés principalement sur deux axes de recherche : la formation de faisceaux et le multiplexage spatial. Dans une première étude, nous avons proposé un schéma de formation de faisceaux, basé sur la technique LCMV (Linearly Constrained Minimum Variance) et permettant de former des faisceaux plus adaptés en cas de mobilité. Dans cette solution, l'incertitude sur la localisation des nœuds est compensée par des faisceaux de largeurs adaptées. De plus, dans le cas où les paramètres (vitesse et direction) de mouvement des nœuds sont connus, nous avons proposé d'exploiter des techniques simples d'extrapolation afin de limiter les calculs complexes des méthodes de poursuite continue (tracking), très consommatrices en ressources. Dans une seconde étude, nous avons proposé une solution d'ordonnancement basée sur la technique du multiplexage spatial qui est une caractéristique fondamentale des systèmes MIMO. L'algorithme proposé (SCLS : Stream-Controlled Multiple Access) exploite les informations inter-couches (cross-layer) : environnement radio de la couche PHY et charge de trafic de la couche LIEN. Il permet de choisir l'ensemble des liens à activer simultanément et détermine sur chacun de ces liens, le nombre d'antennes à utiliser pour transmettre des flux parallèles. SCLS permet ainsi de minimiser le temps nécessaire pour satisfaire les demandes de trafic et de maximiser le débit global utilisé à chaque instant. Dans la troisième étude, nous avons considéré la problématique d'estimation des directions d'arrivée et de départ. Nous avons proposé un algorithme (E-Capon) d'estimation conjointe de ces directions ainsi que du retard de propagation des trajets multiples dans un canal MIMO. Nous nous sommes basés sur la méthode de Capon qui permet de réduire la complexité de traitement pour offrir une estimation rapide et robuste des informations relatives à la localisation des nœuds. Notre objectif est de concevoir une technique mieux adaptée aux changements dynamiques de topologie que l'on peut observer dans les réseaux sans fil. / Recent advances in antennas processing and microelectronics have helped for the emergence of smart antennas and their use in public telecommunication systems. This technology allows sophisticated signal processing and provides significant performance benefits such as increased spectral efficiencies, reduced power consumption, interference cancellation, increased communication reliability and better connectivity. Smart antennas represent a broad variety of antenna technologies that significantly differ in terms of performance and transceiver complexity. The different antennas technologies include switched-beam antennas, adaptive array antennas and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The latter is already being implemented in latest generation equipments and standards like 3GPP-LTE and IEEE 802.11n. The focus of this thesis is to explore the various capabilities of smart antennas and to propose new mechanisms and systems for their use. In particular, we were interested in exploiting two multi-antenna systems' capabilities: spatial multiplexing and beamforming. In the first part of this thesis, we propose a new dynamic beamforming technique for mobile ad hoc networks, based on the LCMV beamformer. Mobiles nodes derive the weight vectors to form dynamic beams more adapted to their mobility parameters. The proposed scheme allows to form dynamic beams with less complexity but more adapted to possible uncertainty on mobile node locations.. Performance evaluations show that the proposed approach enhances system capacity and connectivity while reducing localization overhead and beam forming complexity. In the second part of this thesis, we design and evaluate a joint stream control and link TDMA-based scheduling algorithm (SCLS) for MIMO wireless mesh networks. SCLS is a cross layer resource allocation scheme that selects links to be activated simultaneously and determines the optimal number of streams to be used on each of them. This selection is based on streams' channel gains, traffic demands and interference levels. The proposed algorithm optimizes both the frame length and network capacity and throughput. In the third part, a joint Angle of Arrival (AOA), Angle of Departure (AOD) and Delay of Arrival algorithm, based on the Capon Beamformer, is proposed. These physical parameters of the received signals are needed to develop advanced antenna systems and other applications such as localization in indoor environments.The proposed algorithm reduces both complexity and computation time compared to subspace-based existing methods. The proposed approach works even if the number of multipaths exceeds the number of antenna elements.

Accurate modeling of acoustic propagation in the ocean waveguide is important to SONAR-performance prediction, and requires, particularly in shallow water environments, characterizing the bottom reflection loss with a precision that databank-based modeling cannot achieve. Recent advances in the technology of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) make it possible to envision a survey system for seabed characterization composed of a short array mounted on a small AUV. The bottom power reflection coefficient (and the related reflection loss) can be estimated passively by beamforming the naturally occurring marine ambient-noise acoustic field recorded by a vertical line array of hydrophones. However, the reduced array lengths required by small AUV deployment can hinder the process, due to the inherently poor angular resolution. In this dissertation, original data-processing techniques are presented which, by introducing into the processing chain knowledge derived from physics, can improve the performance of short arrays in this particular task. Particularly, the analysis of a model of the ambient-noise spatial coherence function leads to the development of a new proof of the result at the basis of the bottom reflection-loss estimation technique. The proof highlights some shortcomings inherent in the beamforming operation so far used in this technique. A different algorithm is then proposed, which removes the problem achieving improved performance. Furthermore, another technique is presented that uses data from higher frequencies to estimate the noise spatial coherence function at a lower frequency, for sensor spacing values beyond the physical length of the array. By "synthesizing" a longer array, the angular resolution of the bottom-loss estimate can be improved, often making use of data at frequencies above the array design frequency, otherwise not utilized for beamforming. The proposed algorithms are demonstrated both in simulation and on real data acquired during several experimental campaigns.

Smart antenna technique has emerged as one of the leading technologies for enhancing the quality of service in wireless networks. Because of its ability to concentrate transmit power in desired directions, it has been widely adopted by academia and industry to achieve better coverage, improved capacity and spectrum efficiency of wireless communication systems. In spite of its popularity in applications of performance enhancement, the smart antenna's capability of improving wireless network security is relatively less explored. This dissertation focuses on exploiting the smart antenna technology to develop physical layer solutions to anti-eavesdropping and location security problems. We first investigate the problem of enhancing wireless communication privacy. A novel scheme named "artificial fading" is proposed, which leverages the beam switching capability of smart antennas to prevent eavesdropping attacks. We introduce the optimization strategy to design a pair of switched beam patterns that both have high directional gain to the intended receiver. Meanwhile, in all the other directions, the overlap between these two patterns is minimized. The transmitter switches between the two patterns at a high frequency. In this way, the signal to unintended directions experiences severe fading and the eavesdropper cannot decode it. We use simulation experiments to show that the artificial fading outperforms single pattern beamforming in reducing the unnecessary coverage area of the wireless transmitter. We then study the impact of beamforming technique on wireless localization systems from the perspectives of both location privacy protection and location spoofing attack. For the location privacy preservation scheme, we assume that the adversary uses received signal strength (RSS) based localization systems to localize network users in Wireless LAN (WLAN). The purpose of the scheme is to make the adversary unable to uniquely localize the user when possible, and otherwise, maximize error of the adversary's localization results. To this end, we design a two-step scheme to optimize the beamforming pattern of the wireless user's smart antenna. First, the user moves around to estimate the locations of surrounding access points (APs). Then based on the locations of the APs, pattern synthesis is optimized to minimize the number of APs in the coverage area and degenerate the localization precision. Simulation results show that our scheme can significantly lower the chance of being localized by adversaries and also degrade the location estimation precision to as low as the coverage range of the AP that the wireless user is connected to. As personal privacy preservation and security assurance at the system level are always conflictive to some extent, the capability of smart antenna to intentionally bias the RSS measurements of the localization system also potentially enables location spoofing attacks. From this aspect, we present theoretical analysis on the feasibility of beamforming-based perfect location spoofing (PLS) attacks, where the attacker spoofs to a target fake location by carefully choosing the beamforming pattern to fool the location system. The PLS problem is formulated as a nonlinear feasibility problem, and due to its intractable nature, we solve it using semidefinite relaxation (SDR) in conjunction with a heuristic local search algorithm. Simulation results show the effectiveness of our analytical approach and indicate the correlation between the geometry of anchor deployment and the feasibility of PLS attacks. Based on the simulation results, guidelines for guard against PLS attacks are provided. / Ph. D.

No description available.