Performance of broadband arrays using convolution constraints

Abstract

Broadband antenna arrays are pre-steered to compensate for the misalignment between the sensors and the look direction. The process is difficult and may cause loss of performance. This paper discusses a set of linear constraints referred to as “convolution constraints” for broadband beam-forming which eliminates the need for presteering and evaluates the performance of the array processor using these constraints to show that these are easy to implement, suitable for existing adaptive weight update methods and do not add any extra computational demands as is the case for some existing methods. Using these constraints an array designer is able to specify the frequency response of an element space time domain beamformer in any direction over the band of interest without using steering delays.