New distributed beamforming techniques based on optimized elliptical arc geometry for back lobe cancellation of linear antenna arrays

Abstract

The presence of array back lobe is a major source of interference, power loss, and degrades the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) in wireless communication systems. In this paper, new distributed beamforming techniques based on an optimized elliptical arc geometry (EAG) are proposed for back lobe cancellation of linear antenna arrays (LAA). The optimized EAG allows for flexible control of the elements' locations and initial transmission phases of their radiations, allowing them to add constructively towards the main beam direction and add destructively towards the back lobe direction. Firstly, two EAG based beamforming techniques are introduced using either a single ellipse-EAG (SE-EAG) or double ellipses-EAGs (DE-EAG). In these techniques, the back lobes are minimized by optimizing both the minor axes of the elliptical arcs and the elements' angular distributions using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique. While the elements' transmission energies are kept the same as that of the original LAA. For further back lobe minimization, the double ellipses-EAG with optimized energies (DE-EAG-WOE) beamforming technique is introduced, where both elements' transmission energies and positions are optimized. To verify the superiority and the possibility of practical validation of the proposed techniques, the proposed distributed array configurations based on the DE-EAG-WOE are realized using the CST Microwave Studio software package using dipole elements.

Keywords

• Array beamforming
• Chebyschev array
• Elliptical Arc Geometry (EAG)
• Linear Antenna Array (LAA)
• Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)
• Uniform Linear Array (ULA)