Maritime Communications via Satellites Employing Phased Arrays

This paper examines the feasibility of providing maritime mobile telecommunications as a new service via satellites. A global system with a capacity of 10 duplex voice/data channels (plus an interrogation/reply channel) per satellite is described. The capability is achieved with a 0-dB gain UHF antenna in the ship and a UHF phased array in the satellite, which produces 11 steerable beams, each with 30-dB peak gain. The links between satellite and shore are assumed to be at SHF. A dedicated satellite weighs 320 kg, which can be launched with an up-rated Thor-Delta. The prime power requirement of 730 watts is provided by an oriented solar array.     

Fast Algorithms for Time Domain Broadband Adaptive Array Processing

Recursive algorithms are presented for time domain, broadband, adaptive beamforming. The algorithms are rapidly converging and can be computationally efficient for a certain range of array processor parameters. The algorithms are presented for two forms of array processor. One form is a Frost-type structure in which explicit constraints are required for defining the array-look direction and also to control the sensitivity of the array processor to implementation errors. The other form is a partitioned array processor in which constraints are built into the processor and the adaptive weight control algorithm is therefore unconstrained. The two processors presented are both element-space processors but the algorithms can be applied also to beam-space processors.     

Exact least squares adaptive beamforming using an orthogonalizationnetwork

The pros and cons of various classical and state-of-the-art methods in adaptive array processing are discussed, and the relevant concepts and historical developments are pointed out. A set of easy-to-understand equations for facilitating derivation of any least-squares-based algorithm is derived. Using this set of equations and incorporating all of the useful properties associated with various techniques, an efficient solution to the real-time adaptive beamforming problem is developed     

A sampling-based approach to wideband interference cancellation

Classical adaptive array schemes which use only complex spatial weights are inherently narrowband and consequently perform poorly when attempting to suppress wideband interference. The common solution to this problem is the use of tapped delay line filters in each spatial channel to facilitate space-time adaptive processing (STAP). The higher performance provided by the STAP architecture comes at the cost of a considerable increase in complexity. This paper presents a simpler technique based on programmable time adjustable sampling (TAS) that provides a limited number of wideband degrees of freedom. Two TAS methods are introduced: TAS-sidelobe canceler (TAS-SLC) is based on the sidelobe canceler, while TAS-minimum variance beamformer (TAS-MVB) is derived from the minimum variance beamformer. TAS is implemented by adjusting the sampling instant at selected array channels. TAS-SLC consists of controlling the sampling in the main channel of the sidelobe canceler With TAS-MVB array complex weights are substituted with TAS time delays. The performance of TAS methods with wideband interference is compared to the conventional sidelobe canceler and minimum variance beamformers. It is shown that TAS-SLC provides better performance than the sidelobe canceler, while TAS-MVB outperforms the minimum variance beamformer     

Performance evaluation of digital beamforming strategies for satellite communications

Smart antennas are becoming one of the promising technologies to meet the rapidly increasing demands for more capacity of satellite communication systems. A main component in a smart antenna system is beamforming. Because of the limitations of analog beamforming, digital beamforming will be employed in future satellite communication systems. We evaluate the performance of various digital beamforming strategies proposed in the literature for satellite communications: 1) single fixed beam/single user, 2) single fixed beam/multiple users, 3) single adaptive beam/single user, and 4) single Chebyshev dynamic beam/multiple users. Multiple criteria including coverage, system capacity, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), and computation complexity are used to evaluate these satellite communication beamforming strategies. In particular, a Ka-band satellite communication system is used to address the various issues of these beamforming strategies. For the adaptive beamforming approach, subarray structure is used to obtain the weights of a large 2D antenna array, and a globally convergent recurrent neural network (RNN) is proposed to realize the adaptive beamforming algorithm in parallel. The new subarray-based neural beamforming algorithm can reduce the computation complexity greatly, and is more effective than the conventional least mean square (LMS) beamforming approach. It is shown that the single adaptive beam/single user approach has the highest system capacity.     

2-D spatial smoothing for multipath coherent signal separation

The use of two-dimensional spatial smoothing (SS) to increase channel capacity of wireless communications system is discussed, The necessary and sufficient conditions on array configuration for applying SS to multiple signal classification (MUSIC), and adaptive beamforming algorithms are defined and proved, This array must have an orientational invariance structure with an ambiguity free center array, and the number of subarrays must be larger than or equal to the size of the largest group of coherent signals. We also studied the cause of ambiguities in a multipath environment. We found the necessary and sufficient conditions for a three-sensor array manifold to be ambiguity free and identified several higher order ambiguity situations, If an array is also central symmetric, the forward/backward SS (FBSS) can be used to improve the resolution. Finally, we extended our results to the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT). All the predicted results are verified by simulations     

Robust space-time adaptive processing for airborne radar in nonhomogeneous clutter environments

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) holds tremendous potential for the new generation airborne surveillance radar, in which the phased array antennas and pulse Doppler processing mode are adopted. A new STAP approach using the multiple-beam and multiple Doppler channels is presented here for airborne phased array radar. The approach with space-time multiple-beam (STMB) architecture is robust to array errors and has very low system degrees of freedom (DOFs). Hence, it has low sample support requirement and it is very suitable for the practical planar phased array radar under nonhomogeneous clutter environments. Meanwhile, a new nonhomogeneous detector (NHD) based on the correlation dimension (CD) is also proposed here, which is used as an effective method to screen tracing data prior to detection processing. It can further improve the performance of the STAP approach in the severely nonhomogeneous clutter environments. Therefore, a scheme that incorporates the correlation dimension nonhomogeneity detector (CD-NHD) with the STMB is recommended, which we term CD-NHD-STMB. The experimental simulation results indicate that: 1) the STMB processor is robust to array element error and has high performance under nonhomogeneous clutter environments; 2) the CD-NHD is also effective on the nonhomogeneous clutter. As a result, the CD-NHD-STMB scheme is robust to array element error and nonhomogeneous clutter, and therefore available for airborne phased array radar applications.     

Optimal and adaptive reduced-rank STAP

This paper is concerned with issues and techniques associated with the development of both optimal and adaptive (data dependent) reduced-rank signal processing architectures. Adaptive algorithms for 1D beamforming, 2D space-time adaptive processing (STAP), and 3D STAP for joint hot and cold clutter mitigation are surveyed. The following concepts are then introduced for the first time (other than workshop and conference records) and evaluated in a signal-dependent versus signal independent context: (1) the adaptive processing “region-of-convergence” as a function of sample support and rank, (2) a new variant of the cross-spectral metric (CSM) that retains dominant mode estimation in the direct-form processor (DFP) structure, and (3) the robustness of the proposed methods to the subspace “leakage” problem arising in many real-world applications. A comprehensive performance comparison is conducted both analytically and via Monte Carlo simulation which clearly demonstrates the superior theoretical compression performance of signal-dependent rank-reduction, its broader region-of-convergence, and its inherent robustness to subspace leakage     

Adaptive Interference Cancellation in Nyquist Rate Scanned Arrays

A concept for adaptive directional filtering in a Nyquist rate scanned array based on time-domain sampling in the array sum channel is presented. By this method the adaptation rate may be independent of the scan rate in contrast to arrays with adaptive weight setting in the array element channels.     

Analysis of a Signal Processor for an Antenna Array

A signal processor that provides ratio-squared predetection combining, has been investigated for application in an adaptive antenna array. The analysis and experimental data presented here pertain to the signal processing gain when the antenna array is illuminated by a coherent signal source and a partially coherent noise source. For a noise source which is coherent, the processing gain depends on relative strength of the signal and noise, relative directions of arrival, and the usual "array factor." The array exhibits capturing effects much as in an FM receiver. The effective antenna pattern is a superposition of two beams of different magnitudes, one directed to the signal source and the other to the noise source. When the noise is partially coherent, the behavior of the signal processor is quite complex. Analytical prediction and experimental simulation measurement on a four-channel system indicate that the partially coherent noise may be regarded as the source of an incoherent noise component plus a coherent noise component with the magnitude of the latter determined by the coherence coefficient for the noise source.     

圆台阵列杂波模型及空时二维自适应处理

针对圆台共形阵列,建立了空时二维自适应处理(STAP)的杂波模型,给出了圆台阵列杂波抑制最优权值的计算方法。在此基础之上,为了实现可应用到实际环境中的自适应处理方法,进一步讨论了将局部联合域(JDL)降维算法推广至圆台阵列中的问题。得出了圆台阵列JDL算法降维变换矩阵的表达形式,研究了参考波束的数目选取、波束指向等因素对降维损失的影响。理论分析以及仿真结果表明,通过合理选择通道数、波束方位向指向间隔等参数,该算法能够减少自适应波束形成的计算量,而且可以用较少的训练样本获得较好的处理性能。     

基于矩阵填充的二维自适应波束形成算法

针对基于矩阵填充的二维自适应波束形成问题,提出一种基于奇异值门限(SVT)的特征分解线性约束最小方差(SVT-ELCMV)算法。首先建立二维自适应波束形成矩阵填充模型,其次验证接收信号矩阵满足零空间性质(NSP),并分析最小可恢复阵元数,最后以SVT算法将稀疏阵列信号恢复为完整信号,并通过修正的特征分解线性约束最小方差(LCMV)形成有效波束。算法解决了稀疏阵列平均副瓣大幅度上升的缺陷,且在平面阵列部分阵元无法正常工作时依然有效。计算机仿真表明:SVT-ELCMV算法可使稀疏阵列具有与完整阵列相同的二维波束形成能力,并可有效抑制干扰信号,验证了算法的有效性和优越性。     

Adaptive digital beamforming for angle estimation in jamming

A radar digital beamforming (DBF) architecture and processing algorithm is described for nulling the signal from a mainlobe electronic jammer and multiple sidelobe electronic jammers while maintaining monopulse angle estimation accuracy on the target. The architecture consists of a sidelobe jamming (SLJ) cancelling adaptive array (AA) followed by a mainlobe jamming (MLJ) canceller. A mainlobe maintenance (MLM) technique or constrained adaptation during the sidelobe cancellation process is imposed so that the results of the SLJ cancellation process do not distort the subsequent mainlobe cancellation process. The SLJ signals and the MLJ signals are thus cancelled sequentially in separate processes. This technique was developed for improving radar processing in determining the angular location of a target, and specifically for improving the monopulse technique by maintaining the accuracy of the target echo monopulse ratio in the presence of electronic jamming by adaptive suppression of the jamming signals before forming the monopulse sum and difference beams     

小波域的自适应波束形成算法

在分析传统自适应波束形成的基础上,首次提出了一种小波域的自适应波束形成算法。与通常的自适应波束形成算法相比,该算法利用小波变换对小波空间进行了分解,信号经小波变换自相关性会下降,收敛速度提高,同时在此分解过程中,根据信号与白噪声在不同尺度上的小波变换模极大值表现完全不同的特性进行信号的消噪。理论分析和仿真结果表明了该算法收敛速度较快,且计算量增加较少,易于实时实现,而且具有较好性能。同时仿真实验表明该算法收敛速度与小波基和尺度的选择有关,尺度越大收敛速度越快;对于同一小波基系列,小波基的正则性越好收敛速度越快。     

Adaptive Array Bandwidth with Tapped Delay-Line Processing

The bandwidth of adaptive arrays with tapped delay lines behind the elements is examined. Such processing offers improved bandw over that attainable with quadrature hybrid processing. The performance of a two-element array with four types of processing (equarature hybrids, single delay lines, 3-tap delay lines, and 5-tap delay lines) is compared. It is shown that with half-wavelength element spacing, a quadrature hybrid and single delay-line processor are inadequate at 10-percent bandwidth. A 3-tap processor is adeq however, up to 40-percent bandwidth.     

An Adaptive Array Signal Processing Algorithm for Communications

An algorithm is described for initial synchronization in a communication system with a digital adaptive array. This algorithm can also be used for message extraction. A set of consecutive complex video samples of the array output is processed to obtain optimum adaptive array weights, based on a least mean square (LMS) error criterion. This computation is performed for each of the possible alternative signals which may be present during an observation interval. The correct synchronization time or message symbol is selected as the one which yields the minimum LMS error. Assuming orthogonality of the alternative codes, a probability distribution for the output of this processor has been derived.     

Experimental phased array radar ELRA with extended flexibility

An update of a phased array radar project with the experimental system ELRA (electronic steerable radar) is given with respect to the extended and improved possibilities for performing measurements and evaluations for different types of radar operation. The variability of waveforms for solid-state transmitters is described. Flexible control of multifunction operation with various search and localization tasks is achieved with a network of microcomputers. Different means of signal processing are used for target detection and estimation. The active receiving array is divided into subarrays, and offers digital beamforming for pattern shaping and adaptive jammer suppression. Experimental results are presented     

Comparison between monostatic and bistatic antenna configurationsfor STAP

The unique characteristics of bistatic radar operation on the performance of airborne/spaceborne moving target indicator (MTI) radars that use space-time adaptive processing (STAP) are discussed. It has been shown that monostatic STAP radar has the following properties. 1) For a horizontal flight path and a planar Earth the curves of constant clutter Doppler (isodops) are hyperbolas. 2) For a sidelooking antenna geometry the clutter Doppler is range independent. 3) Clutter trajectories in the cosφ-F plane (F=normalized Doppler) are in general ellipses (or straight lines for a sidelooking array). We demonstrate that these well-known properties are distorted by the displacement between transmitter and receiver in a bistatic configuration. It is shown that even for the sidelooking array geometry the clutter Doppler is range-dependent which requires adaptation of the STAP processor for each individual range gate. Conclusions for the design of STAP processors are drawn     

Optimal time-varying load sharing for divisible loads

A load sharing problem involving the optimal load allocation of divisible loads in a distributed computing system consisting of N processors interconnected through a bus-oriented network is investigated. For a divisible lend, the workload is infinitely divisible so that each fraction of the workload can be distributed and independently computed on each processor. For the first time in divisible load theory, an analysis is provided in the case when the processor speed and the channel speed are time varying due to background jobs submitted to the distributed system with nonnegligible communication delays. A numerical method to calculate the average of the time-varying processor speed and the channel speed and an algorithm to find the optimal allocation of the workload to minimize the total processing finish time are proposed via a deterministic analysis. A stochastic analysis which makes use of Markovian queueing theory is introduced for the case when arrival and departure times of the background jobs are not known     

WiMAX dynamnic beamforming antenna

This presents our design and development of an 8-channel adaptive beaniforming antenna for new developments in radio technology: the emergence of chip-based components implementing the recently completed IEEE 802.16d-2004 (WiMAX) radio standard [1-4]. WiMAX offers the potential of long-range (up to 50 miles) and high bandwidth (up to 50 Mb~s) radio links. Although the new WiMAX standard offers the potential for using smart, adaptive antennas, this functionality has not been implemented. Our design will serve as a common platform for testing adaptive array algorithms including direction of arrival (DOA) estimation, beamforming, and adaptive tracking, as well as complete wireless communication with a WiMAX Radio. Heavy emphasis will be placed on ease of implementation in a multi-channel / multi-user environment. In the future, we hope to expand this interface to support dynamic radio channel selection via direct interaction with radio hardware or implementation of a cognitive radio system.