The Comparison of Digital Beamforming Technology for Optimal Noise Reduction in Conformal Antenna Arrays with Directive Radiators

Abstract

The article considers the problem of applying digital beamforming to circular, cube, conical, planar and spherical antenna arrays (AA). It is known that the geometry of antenna arrays significantly influences the characteristics of beamforming, the most important of which is the possibility of locating the maximum only in the azimuth plane. To overcome this problem, planar and conformal arrays were considered for tasks which required the location of the maximum of the radiation pattern in both the azimuth and elevation planes for more accurate amplification of the desired signal. A statistically optimal noise reduction algorithm for a digital antenna array was simulated as a part of a simple communication system using circular, cube, conical, planar and spherical antenna arrays models. The influence of the directive gain of an individual antenna element on such characteristics of digital beamforming as peak power, side lobe level, null depth, gain factor, and also bit error probability for various types of signal modulation were studied. The limits of the directive gain change of an individual element are determined, at which the minimum error of information transmission is achieved.