Experimental Characterization of UWB Beamformers Based on 
Multidimensional Beam Filters

Tony Liang

The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Electromagnetics)

Abstract:

Ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communication systems, operating from 3.1-10.6 GHz, can benefit significantly from adaptive wideband beamforming networks, since having the ability to spatially discriminate some angles of arrival from others could greatly reduce the impact of multipath and co-channel interference. Wideband agile beamforming networks remain a major challenge and are a topic of intense research. State-of-the-art beamforming analog hardware generally consist of variable delay elements in a delay-and-sum architecture where signals are summed coherently after experiencing a variable true-time-delay (TTD) component. In addition to delay-and-sum architecture, discrete time algorithms can also be designed to achieve wideband beamforming characteristics.

In this talk, a discrete time algorithm is designed to achieve the  desired beamforming characteristics, while reducing noise and interference from undesired angles of arrival and improving received signal-to-noise ratio. The beamformer is characterized in a real UWB wireless channel to quantitatively evaluate its performance (relative to when no beamformers are used), and to compare it's performance gain to that of the ideal TTD network, which serves as a reference.

Biography:

Tony received his BASc degree in Electrical Computer Engineering in2006 at the University of Toronto where he is currently pursuing MASc degree with the Electromagnetics Group. His research includes UWB beamforming networks, UWB channel characterization and frequency agile antennas.