Antenna array geometries and algorithms for direction of arrival estimation

Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation with the antenna array was a forever topic of scientist. In this dissertation, a detailed comparison of the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms, including three classic algorithms as MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT, was performed and an analysis of various array geometries’ (configurations) properties in DOA estimation was demonstrated. Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) was used for theoretic analysis and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), which determined the best performance for a given geometry, regardless the specific estimation algorithm used, was implemented in simulation comparison. In the first part, MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT were illustrated, where theoretic underlying of the algorithms were expressed by revisited, paseudo code algorithms, and compared in the aspects of accuracy and computational efficiency. Consequently, ESPRIT was found more efficient than the other two algorithms in computation. However, the accuracy of MUSIC was better than ESPRIT. In the second part, four particular array geometries, including Uniform Circular Array (UCA), L Shaped Array (LSA), Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) and Double Uniform Circular Array (DUCA), were analyzed in the area of directivity, accuracy and resolving ability. A simulation comparison of DOA estimation with these four array geometries by MUSIC algorithm in two dimensions was made then, since MUSIC had the best accuracy in these three algorithms. According to the analysis and comparison, it was found that L Shaped Array (LSA) and Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) were more accurate than others, considering both azimuth and elevation estimation. Also, in the case of two dimensional DOA estimation, the Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) was shown a theoretically relative isotropy to other array geometries. From the simulation, the detection ability of Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) was proved the best in the array geometries discussed in this dissertation. These findings had significant implications for the further study of the array geometry in DOA estimation

Antenna array geometries and algorithms for direction of arrival estimation

Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation with the antenna array was a forever topic of scientist. In this dissertation, a detailed comparison of the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms, including three classic algorithms as MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT, was performed and an analysis of various array geometries’ (configurations) properties in DOA estimation was demonstrated. Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) was used for theoretic analysis and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), which determined the best performance for a given geometry, regardless the specific estimation algorithm used, was implemented in simulation comparison. In the first part, MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT were illustrated, where theoretic underlying of the algorithms were expressed by revisited, paseudo code algorithms, and compared in the aspects of accuracy and computational efficiency. Consequently, ESPRIT was found more efficient than the other two algorithms in computation. However, the accuracy of MUSIC was better than ESPRIT. In the second part, four particular array geometries, including Uniform Circular Array (UCA), L Shaped Array (LSA), Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) and Double Uniform Circular Array (DUCA), were analyzed in the area of directivity, accuracy and resolving ability. A simulation comparison of DOA estimation with these four array geometries by MUSIC algorithm in two dimensions was made then, since MUSIC had the best accuracy in these three algorithms. According to the analysis and comparison, it was found that L Shaped Array (LSA) and Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) were more accurate than others, considering both azimuth and elevation estimation. Also, in the case of two dimensional DOA estimation, the Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) was shown a theoretically relative isotropy to other array geometries. From the simulation, the detection ability of Double L Shaped Array (DLSA) was proved the best in the array geometries discussed in this dissertation. These findings had significant implications for the further study of the array geometry in DOA estimation

High Gain Pattern Reconfigurable Antenna Arrays for Portable and Body-Centric Wireless Applications

Wireless devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, smartwatches etc. have become ubiquitous. With that, the demand for high speed data has increased tremendously. Designing antennas for such applications is challenging because of limited availability of space, shadowing or blockage from the human body, and signal loss from multipath fading. Conventional broad, fixed beam low gain antennas result in poor reception, faster battery drainage, and low data rate. Compressed footprint high gain pattern reconfigurable antenna arrays can solve these problems which is the focus of this dissertation. Two innovative high gain pattern reconfiguration techniques, the switched beam parasitic array and the varactor controlled series-fed phased array are studied and developed. First, by taking advantage of the controlled coupling between closely spaced driven and parasitic dipoles, a compressed footprint beam steering array is developed for handheld devices. By optimizing the interelement spacing and the ON/OFF states of the RF switches located at the input of the parasitic dipoles, beam steering in the azimuth plane is achieved. Furthermore, a collinear arrangement of subarrays allows narrow elevation plane beamwidth and gain of up to 11 dBi. By contrast, typical handheld device antennas have about 3 dBi gain and little or no steering ability. System level analysis shows about 59% improvement in signal-to-interference-plusnoise ratio level over traditional omnidirectional antennas. Second, a high gain switched beam parasitic array is proposed based on fabric materials which can be integrated within the clothing or uniforms of first responders. Material sensitivity analyses considering various conductive and nonconductive fabrics are performed. Studies of the array near a multilayered human body phantom reveal that a minimum distance from the body is required for the array to allow beam steering and high gain. For example, with 10 mm spacing from the body −300 to 300 steering is achieved with 10 dBi peak gain which are excellent for high throughput communication. Third, a novel concept to design ultrathin directional broadband antennas using a nonuniform aperiodic (NUA) metasurface is introduced. By employing a decreasing taper for both the metasurface patch and their interelement spacing, broad impedance and pattern bandwidths are attained. Experimental results show that, with a total thickness of 0.04 free-space wavelength at the lowest frequency of operation, an octave bandwidth can be obtained, which is significantly larger compared with existing designs on uniform mushroom electromagnetic band-gap structures. Based on the NUA metasurface, a thin switched beam (00, 250, and 3350) parasitic antenna array is presented which with a thickness of 0.04 wavelength can attain high gain (8.4 dBi) and very high front-to-back ratio. Finally, to overcome the challenges of wide and overlapping beams with parasitic arrays, and the space constraint and circuit complexity required by phased arrays, a new varactor controlled series-fed phased array is proposed for wearable applications. At the center of the design is a varactor controlled phase shifter, where varactor capacitance is changed by applying different bias voltages which alters the progressive phase between series-fed antenna input currents and allows array pattern to be reconfigured. Low return loss, high gain, and beam steering with nulls between two consecutive beams are achieved. It is observed that the choice of substrate and varactors are critical to minimize loss. While the works presented here reflect the 5 GHz frequency band the design and ideas are likely scalable and adaptable for next generation mm-wave systems operating at 28, 38, and 60 GHz

Autonomous smart antenna systems for future mobile devices

Along with the current trend of wireless technology innovation, wideband, compact size, low-profile, lightweight and multiple functional antenna and array designs are becoming more attractive in many applications. Conventional wireless systems utilise omni-directional or sectored antenna systems. The disadvantage of such antenna systems is that the electromagnetic energy, required by a particular user located in a certain direction, is radiated unnecessarily in every direction within the entire cell, hence causing interference to other users in the system. In order to limit this source of interference and direct the energy to the desired user, smart antenna systems have been investigated and developed. This thesis presents the design, simulation, fabrication and full implementation of a novel smart antenna system for future mobile applications. The design and characterisation of a novel antenna structure and four-element liner array geometry for smart antenna systems are proposed in the first stage of this study. Firstly, a miniaturised microstrip-fed planar monopole antenna with Archimedean spiral slots to cover WiFi/Bluetooth and LTE mobile applications has been demonstrated. The fundamental structure of the proposed antenna element is a circular patch, which operates in high frequency range, for the purpose of miniaturising the circuit dimension. In order to achieve a multi-band performance, Archimedean spiral slots, acting as resonance paths, have been etched on the circular patch antenna. Different shapes of Archimedean spiral slots have been investigated and compared. The miniaturised and optimised antenna achieves a bandwidth of 2.2GHz to 2.9GHz covering WiFi/Bluetooth (2.45GHz) and LTE (2.6GHz) mobile standards. Then a four-element linear antenna array geometry utilising the planar monopole elements with Archimedean spiral slots has been described. All the relevant parameters have been studied and evaluated. Different phase shifts are excited for the array elements, and the main beam scanning range has been simulated and analysed. The second stage of the study presents several feeding network structures, which control the amplitude and phase excitations of the smart antenna elements. Research begins with the basic Wilkinson power divider configuration. Then this thesis presents a compact feeding network for circular antenna array, reconfigurable feeding networks for tuning the operating frequency and polarisations, a feeding network on high resistivity silicon (HRS), and an ultrawide-band (UWB) feeding network covering from 0.5GHz to 10GHz. The UWB feeding network is used to establish the smart antenna array system. Different topologies of phase shifters are discussed in the third stage, including ferrite phase shifters and planar phase shifters using switched delay line and loaded transmission line technologies. Diodes, FETs, MMIC and MEMS are integrated into different configurations. Based on the comparison, a low loss and high accurate Hittite MMIC analogue phase shifter has been selected and fully evaluated for this implementation. For the purpose of impedance matching and field matching, compact and ultra wideband CPW-to-Microstrip transitions are utilised between the phase shifters, feeding network and antenna elements. Finally, the fully integrated smart antenna array achieves a 10dB reflection coefficient from 2.25GHz to 2.8GHz, which covers WiFi/Bluetooth (2.45GHz) and LTE (2.6GHz) mobile applications. By appropriately controlling the voltage on the phase shifters, the main beam of the antenna array is steered ±50° and ±52°, for 2.45GHz and 2.6GHz, respectively. Furthermore, the smart antenna array demonstrates a gain of 8.5dBi with 40° 3dB bandwidth in broadside direction, and has more than 10dB side lobe level suppression across the scan. The final stage of the study investigates hardware and software automatic control systems for the smart antenna array. Two microcontrollers PIC18F4550 and LPC1768 are utilised to build the control PCBs. Using the graphical user interfaces provided in this thesis, it is able to configure the beam steering of the smart antenna array, which allows the user to analyse and optimise the signal strength of the received WiFi signals around the mobile device. The design strategies proposed in this thesis contribute to the realisation of adaptable and autonomous smart phone systems

Enhancement and performance analysis for 3D beamforming systems

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis thesis is about the researching for 5th generation (5G) communication system, which focus on the improvement of 3D beamforming technology in the antenna array using in the Full Dimension Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (FD-MIMO) system and Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) system. When the 3D beamforming technology has been used in 5G communication system, the beam needs a weighting matrix to direct the beam to cover the UEs, but some compromises should be considered. If the narrow beams are used to transmit signals, then more energy is focused in the desired direction, but this has a restricted coverage area to a single or few User Equipments (UEs). If the BS covers multiple UEs, then multiple beams need to be steered towards more groups of UEs, but there is more interference between these beams from their side lobes when they are transmitted at same time. These challenges are waiting to be solved, which are about interference between each beam when the 3D beamforming technology is used. Therefore, there needs to be one method to decrease the generated interference between each beam through directing the side lobe beams and nulls to minimize interference in the 3D beamforming system. Simultaneously, energy needs to be directed towards the desired direction. If it has been decided that one beam should covera cluster of UEs, then there will be a range of received Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) depending on the location of the UEs relative to the direction of the main beam. If the beam is directed towards a group of UEs then there needs be a clustering method to cluster the UEs. In order to cover multiple UEs, an improved K-means clustering algorithm is used to cluster the multiple UEs into different groups, which is based on the cosine distance. Itcan decrease the number of beams when multiple UEs need be covered by multiple beams at same time. Moreover, a new method has been developed to calculate the weighting matrix for beamforming. It can adjust the values of weighting matrix according to the UEs’ location and direct the main beam in a desired direction whilst minimizing its side lobes in other undesired directions. Then the minimum side lobe beamforming system only needs to know the UEs’ location and can be used to estimate the Channel State Information (CSI) of UEs. Therefore, the scheme also shows lower complexity when compared to the beamforming methods with pre-coding. In order to test the improved K-means clustering algorithm and the new weighting method that can enhance the performance for 3D beamforming system, the two simulation systems are simulated to show the results such as 3D beamforming LTE system and mm-wave system