Angle of Arrival Estimation Through a Full-Hardware Approach for Adaptive Beamforming

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. II, Express briefs Vol. 67; no. 12; pp. 3033 - 3037
• Main Authors: Avitabile, Gianfranco, Florio, Antonello, Coviello, Giuseppe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-12-2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Angle of arrival; Angle of arrival estimation; Antenna arrays; Array signal processing; Beamforming; Circuits and systems; Delay effects; direction of arrival; Estimation; Hardware; Internet of Things; Modular structures; Modular systems; Narrowband; narrowband communication systems; Phased arrays; Radio frequency; Receiving antennas
• ISSN: 1549-7747; 1558-3791
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSII.2020.2995064

This brief introduces a full-hardware approach for Angle of Arrival (AoA) estimation in phased array antennas. The system has a modular structure composed of an analog section to up/down-convert RF signals and a digital section for the AoA estimation. The estimation furnished by the proposed approach can be used to perform adaptive beamforming either to increase the range of operation and/or reduce transmitted power in IoT applications. Some preliminary experimental results are reported validating the proposed strategy for a single narrowband received signal.