DIGITAL BEAMFORMING

Hans Steyskal

ABSTRACT
Digital beamforming (DBF) is an emerging technology which represents a quan-
tum step in antenna performance. The approach preserves the total infor-
mation received at the array aperture which, coupled with the flexibility of
digital processing, offers a number of attractive features beyond the capa-
bilities of conventional arrays. The intent of this paper is to give a
perspective on DBF technology.
INTRODUCTION
Ever more information and sophistication are required from future radar and
communication systems and, therefore, the demands on antenna perforamnce are
steadily increasing. A new technology of interest in this situation is dig-
ital beamforming (DBF), which is a powerful technique to enhance antenna
performance. The state of the art of microwave integrated circuits, signal
processing and high speed digital electronics are now beginning to make DBF
feasible for microwave radar and communication [1-3].

DIGITAL BEAMFORMER ANALOG BEAMFORMER

xj X1f XN)X),j Xi IXNI

AID AiD AID W0 WI WN.1

DIGITAL COMPUTER]
OUTPUT OUTPUT=I Wn Xn

Fig. 1 Digital and analog beamformers

In a DBF array, the received signals are detected and digitized at the ele-
ment level, and then are processed in a special-purpose digital computer to
form the desired beam, Fig. 1. There are two key features to this approach.
First the total information available at the aperture, represented by the N
individual element signals (xn) is preserved, in contrast to an analog
beamformer, which produces the weighted sum of these signals and reduces the
signal dimensionality from N to 1. For instance, directional information
about the incoming wave fronts is lost in the latter process. The second
feature is that once the physical input signals have been properly digitized
they can be manipulated indefinitely, without incurring any further error,
because a digital representation of the signal is used rather than the real
received signal power. Thus any number of beams can be formed or the signal
can be subjected to multiple hypoteses testing.

*Rome Air Development Center, Hanscom AFB, MA USA

49
DIGITAL BEAMFORMING PROMISES
Digital beamf orming in principle is applicable both on transmit and receive.
However, in the transmit mode the benefits are not so significant at present.
Most radar transmitters for efficiency reasons operate at saturated power
levels, analog phase shifting for beam scanning is adequate and beam shape
control and pattern nulling are not so critical.
For the receive mode the main advantages of DBF are:
- Improved adaptive pattern nulling
- Superresolution
- Closed spaced, multiple beams
- Antenna self-calibration and ultra-low sidelobes
- Array element pattern correction
- Flexible radar power and time management.

Presently the strongest driver for DBF is the promise of improved adaptive
pattern nulling. Characteristic to an adaptive array is its ability to auto-
matically reject interference. An extremely important property is the time
required to converge to the adapted state, since too slow convergence renders
the sytem useless in a real-life situation. As a consequence of the gradient
descent principle on which most analog systems are based, their convergence
rate is scenario dependent and often slow. Other control algorithms, e.g.
sample matrix inversion (SMI), are scenario independent and faster, but since
they are computationally intensive and require high precision they are prac-
tical only in the digital domain.
For illustration consider a situation where a desired signal is incident from
a given direction in the presence of directional interference and thermal
noise. The signal to noise plus interference ratio is [4,5]
wt(sst*)W*
SNIR = ------
-(1)
w t Rn w *
where w and s are column vectors and t and * denote transpose and complex
conjugate, respectively. Interpreting (1) for the radar case, the steering
vector s corresponds to the desired look direction and is known, whereas the
covariance matrix Rn accounts for the interference plus noise and is measured
during rtdar deadtime. The desired adapted weights which maximize SNIR are
w = aRn s, where a is a proportionality constant. The SMI method implies
a direct computation of w based on this expression. Assuming this time to be
negligible, the convergence time is set by the time required to collect data
for the covariance matrix. This requires in the order of 2Na samples of the
noise environment, where Na is the number of adaptive degrees of freedom.
Thus the optimum is derived as soon as there is enough information available
and therefore SMI methods represent the ultimate convergence rate.
Fundamental to adaptive systems is a criterion to distinguish between desired
and undesired signals. In addition to the above criterion, many others,
based on spatial as well as temporal constraints, exist.
Superresolution techniques aim to resolve sources closer than the Rayleigh
limit. The key lies in the a priori assumption that the received array sig-
nal vector is generated by a few point sources only, and then the correspond-
ing spatial frequencies in this signal are determined with modern spectrum
estimation methods. These methods involve non-linear signal processing and
the algorithms tend to be highly complex. This, and the requirement for
precise array calibration presumably make the DBF array a prerequisite for

50
their practical implementation. This area, which is closely related to
adaptive nulling, also presently attracts much theoretical attention [3,6],
but apart from [7] experimental work is scarce.
Another feature of DBF arrays is that clusters of closely spaced, low side-
lobe beams can be formed without signal-to-noise ratio penalty, once the
elemental signals have been digitized. The cost for this advantage over
conventional analog multiple-beam formers lies in the LNAs at the element
level, where the resultant system noise figure is established. One of the
most important applications for such clusters of electronically scanned beams
appears to be for "pulse chasing" in multistatic radar systems.

Calibrating procedures can be incorporated in a DBF array with comparative

ease, leading to the potential for high quality antenna patterns with ultra-
low sidelobes. This feature of self-calibration is an advantage but also a
requirement for a DBF system employing an array of elemental receivers with
multiple, cascaded active components. Several techniques are available, such
as injection of precise RF test signals at the receiver front-ends, focusing
on a source at a known position in the near or far-field, or use of a known,
well defined scatterer of the transmitted signal.
In a small array all elements have different radiation patterns, due to mutu-
al coupling, and this may prevent precise pattern control. However, with DBF
these adverse effects can be corrected. The method is based on the recogni-
tion that the signal at the output of the individual antenna element has
several constituents, one dominant due to the direct incident plane wave, and
several lesser ones due to scattering of the incident wave at neighboring
elements. These constituents can be resolved and the scattered ones compen-
sated for by a linear transformation [2]. In a demonstration with an
8-element array, the initial sidelobe level was reduced from -20 dB to -30 dB
with this method [8].
Finally, the flexibility inherent in digital weighting allows optimum allo-
cation for radar power and dwell time. The realized advantages can be
significant from a systems point of view.
DBF IMPLEMENTAION

A generic DBF array consists of the antenna elements, receiver modules,

analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and a digital beamformer and controller,
Fig. 2. The modules comprise complete heterodyne receivers, performing
frequency downconversion, filtering and amplification to a power level
commensurate with the ADC, Fig. 3. The down conversion can be done in one,
two (as shown) or three steps. The choice is governed by practical consid-
erations, with more steps allowing for more optimized characteristics at the
expense of more hardware.
One such issue is the amplitude matching and the phase orthogonality of the
I- and Q-channels, which are extremely critical [9] and tend to be a major
source of error. The present trend, Fig. 2b, therefore, is toward IF sampling
with only one, faster ADC and digital generation of the baseband signal via
the Hilbert transform [10,11].
After the A/D conversion, the signals go to the actual digital beamformer,
a fast parallel processor, which forms the inner product beams at a rate
commensurate with the signal bandwidth. The weight vector(s) w are input
from a separate beam controller. For the case of open-loop adaptive pattern
control, the elemental signals also are input to the beam controller, which
determines, via a suitable algorithm, the proper weights. This, however, can
be done at the relatively slow rate of change of the external scenario.

51
 Fig. 2 Generic DBF array

DOUBLE-CONVERSION
~
AGILE) ~ ELEMENTAL
~ ~ RECEIVER
~ FLTR AML

f>
H
S '--~~~~~~~~~~/ GENEATIO

ELEMENTAL RECEIVER WITH IF-SAMPLING AND DIGITAL I/Q GENERATION

Fig. 3 Typical receivers used In D:BF arrays

FUNEDAMENTAL SYSTEFM CHARACTERISTICS
Fundamental characteristics of great interest for any system are the dynamic
range and the signal bandwidth. For a DBF array, these are set by different
factors than those considered in an analog array.a For adaptive pattern
nulling also the beam controller charactceristics are important.

The instantaneous dynamic range of the system is determined by the number of

bits Nb of the ADC's and the number of parallel channels N. Assuming that
one bit is reserved to denote the sign of the signal it can be shown that the
dynamic range Finn (&6(Nbl1)+IO log N) dB. Thus the range increases by 6 dB
per bit and the factor N expresses the gain due to the coherent integration
of N element signals.
AD converter nonlinearities may restrict the useable dynamic range signif i-
cantly. Iron and Rebold [12] recently tested commercial ADC's by inputting
a spectrally pure, analog sine-wave and performing a spectrum analysis
(weighted FFT) on the digital output. This single-tone testing is considered
more severe than the more common two-tone test since a larger fraction of the

52
 total number of samples falls in the upper and lower quarter of the ADC range.
Large signals stress gain compression and thus emphasize harmonic distortion.
Typical examples for an 8-bit and a 12-bit ADC are shown in Fig. 4 where Pfs
denotes the nominal full scale power anbd Pq=(2/3)2 2Nb Pfs represents the
quantization noise power, had it all been concentrated in a single spectral
line. No true quantization component can therefore ever exceed this level.
The level Pqf represents the actual quantizing power in the FFT effective
bandwidth. The various harmonics are labelled by their order numbers, with 1
denoting the fundamental (input) tone.
ADC SPECTRAL RESPONSE TO PURE SINE-WAVE ADC SPECTRAL RESPONSE TO PURE SINE-WAVE

Pf. -27.4... .0 :-27.? f

2.7 P....
o 2 -.45.2
3 -40 2 .--39.6
459.2 4 .579
5 :-52.4 5 7
O -51.4
11 -52.7
675 54.4
53.
6 1.2
-20 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~26
0
10 :6

wL -40
>o 2~ Pq 6

6.
w ~~~~11
xI
5
3~~~

l i
1607
4 sh 6 is0

iSlflEElht] ^ i1PqI

1!!Bw w
^ @ ^ 1 i

!
&
-80
I
00.1 0.3
0.2 04 0.0 0 0.1 0.2 0.30.4
0.5

PREQUENCY (NORMALIZED TO ADC MAX. SAMPLING RATE)

FREQUENCY (NORMALIZED TO ADC MAX. SAMPLING RATE)

Fig. 4 Nonlinearities in commercial 8-bit ADC (left) and 12-bit ADC (right)

It is clear that the nonlinearities are significant. For the two ADC's the
nominal dynamic ranges have been reduced from 48dB to 40 dB and from 72 dB
to 38 dB respectively. These nonlinearities are most pronounced near satu-
ration. By operating the ADC's at properly reduced levels, several dB below
full scale, Irons and Rebold found that the operating spurious-free signal
range (the difference between the fundamental and the maximum spur) usually
was close to six times the number of bits in dB. This represents the dynamic
range available for processing gain, assuming a white quantization noise
spectrum. For practice, the rule of thumb therefore is to reduce the nominal
bit rating by one or two bits.
The signal bandwidth of the DBF system is determined by the sampling rate of
the ADC's and by the processing speed of the beamformer. To digitize a base-
band signal with bandwidth B with analog I and Q channels and two ADCs, the
Nyquist criterion requires ideally a minimum sampling rate = B, whereas IF
sampling of the corresponding signal with one ADC would require a rate 2B. =

However, with realistic, finite slope filters these rates become -1.4B and
-5B instead [1]. Representative performance of commercial ADC's 1988 is 8
bits/iO0 MHz, 10 bits/50 MHz, 12 bits/20 MHz.
The processing speed of the digital beamformer also must be considered
despite the impressive performance of modern computers. Here a special
purpose processor is the only sensible choice since the required operations
are simple multiplies and adds at high rate. The dynamic range is well
defined and rather limited and thus fixed point arithmetic is adequate. The
processor capacity can be sized considering only the number of multiplica-
tions required to form the inner-product beam (w,x). Each beam requires N
complex multiplies at the sampling rate (=B) which brings the total count
to =NB COPS (complex operations per second). For a modest array size,
N=100, signal bandwidth B=1 MHz and small number of beams this is well within
53
present processor capabilities. However, for a full-scale radar with several
thousand elements and many indpendent beams this load is still challenging.
An alternative to forming custom beams with individual weight vectors is to
use a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to calculate the entire set of N ortho-
gonal beams simultaneously, assuming the array elements are uniformly spaced.
This approach is extremely efficient and uses only about (N/2) log2N-N complex
multiplies. For an application, however, the FFT and the custom beams are not
necessarily equivalent; the latter have arbitrary beam patterns and directions,
whereas the former all have identical patterns and constant angular spacing.
The beam controller also may be a limiting factor, depending on the particular
control algorithm implemented. As a representative example consider open-loop
nulling via the SMI method. The mathematical operations required here are
rather complicated and require high precision arithmetic but on the other hand
need to be performed only at the rate of change of the external scenario. The
formation of the sample matrix and its inversion take approximnately 7/6 N3
complex operations. With N=64 elements and an update rate of 100 times/sec
this leads to "30 106 COPS, which is doable but not trivial at present.
With N3-dependence, however, clearly the number of adaptive degrees of freedom
N must be kept to an absolute minimum.
OTHER IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
SMI with its various steps of covriance matrix formation, matrix inversion,
weight calculation, beam formation is attractive conceptually but not archi-
tecturally. Further, the covariance matrix represents "power", which leads
to large dynamic range, possibly poor conditioning and requires high precision
arithmetic. Alternative approaches, based for instance on Gram-Schmidt ortho-
gonalization and on Q-R decomposition therefore have been developed [5,13-15].
Here the signals can be viewed as being transformed in a set of cascaded pre-
processors. Implementation is in the form of a very efficient, triangular
systolic processor that is highly modular, resulting in a new architecture
different from that of Fig. 2.
Other computational simplifications may be gained by going from element space
to beamspace via a spatial Fourier transform [5]. Assuming a scenario where
there are signals only in a relatively small number M of directions then only
a correspondingly small number of beams need to be considered, rather than the
large number N of elemental signals. Now processing these beams by an SMI
or similar adaptive algorithm, requires only on the order of M3 rather than
N3 mathematical operations, which often is a dramatic reduction in complexity.
Sophisticated adaptive systems based on this concept have been presented
recently [16,17].
EXAMPLES OF DBE SYSTEM
Several experimental DBF systems have been reported, notable from the UK
[1,18] and recently also from the USA [19, 20]. However, space allows here
only presentation of a select few examples.
The earliest and still most ambitious reported DBF system is the ELRA phased
array radar in West Germany [21], which has brought much inspiration to the
field. The basic concept is to use digital instead of analog circuitry as
far as possible in a radar system. It has separate, thinned transmit and
receive arrays, with 300 and 768 elements respectively, operating at S-band.
Element calibration is performed via a fixed probe in the near-zone. The
receive elements are combined into 48 subarrays with digital outputs from
which a number of beams if formed and the whole beam cluster is scanned by
analog phase shifters. The radar system provides an ideal testbed for a
variety of signal processing techniques.

54
In the US, one large operational system is the Air Force East Coast Radar
System (OTH-B). This is a bistatic system operating between 5 and 28 MHz
with a bandwidth of about 100 KHz. On receive, up to 82 elements are used to
form four simultaneous beams that cover the transmit beam. Adaptive nulling
and on-line receiver error correction are provided (22].
RADC is presently evaluating a DBF testbed with a 32 element linear array,
operating at C-band [23J. Triple conversion receivers provide analog I and Q
signals, which are digitized by a pair of 10 bit/0.5 MHz A/D converters. The
tunable bandwidth is 500 MHz, first and second IF are at about 3.25 GHz and
45 MHz and the noise figure is 4.5 dB. High performance commercially avail-
able components were used. After digital correction of channel imbalances
(±2 dB amplitude, random phase) and I/Q and DC-offset errors the RMS phase
error is 2 degrees, consistent with a -45 dB sidelobe level. Blocks of
data are recorded for off-line beamforming with a personal computer.
A main purpose of this program is to address calibration - a problem common
to all DBF systems. The array features a novel self-calibration system which
monitors the 32 receive channels for subsequent digital correction of channel
imbalances. The basic component is a high precision bidirectional loop, Fig.
5. The calibration source has two paths to each elemental receiver. Coupling
off the main transmission line is via non-directional couplers, so that the
coupling is identical for either path through the feed. Calibration of an
elemental receiver is by two separate measurements of its output signal, with
the test signal fed through either direction of the loop feed. From these,
values for channel transfer coefficients can be derived that are independent
both of the location of the calibration test port and of the phase shift and
attenuation through the feed loop. Thus they are insensitive to thermal
expansion of the feed. The approach, however, is limited by the correlated
error introduced into the calibration measurements by small mismatches at the
couplers and at the terminations on the load ends.

DIRECTIONAL
- -
NON-DI RECT ONAL
~~~~~~~~COUJPLER
COLPLER

z~~~~~~~~
10 1 0 Q

CAL IBRAT ION CALIBRATION LOO TRSM ISSION L INE

SOURCE fi a

Fig. 5 Bidirectional loop for calibration signal distribution

Another project is an extrmely fast beamforming processor [24]. The design
is for 64 complex input channels and incorporates four parallel processors
that form independent inner product beams (w, x) at 25 MHz clock rate. It
has several unique features. The design allows flexibility with respect to
the numnber of beams formed, since the bandwidth is excessive for many appli-
cations. Thus, alternatively, 4, 8, 16 or 32 beams can be multiplexed with a
55
proportionally reduced bandwidth. The high computational capacity, 6.4 109
COPS, is achieved with a systolic processor architecture based on the
quadratic residue number system (QRNS) [25]. This number theoretic approach
is highly effective for multiplications and additions, and uses integer
arithmetic so that round-off errors are avoided. The finite dynamic range is
tailored to correspond to the limited range of the quantized input signals.
Compared to a conventional approach this processor has about 40% less com-
plexity (defined as the product of gate count and gate delays). A point of
practical interest is a transfer from hardware to software complexity. To
correct for receive channel imbalances and thus operate with "error-free" data
apparently requires in-line multipliers at each signal input, i.e., between
the A/D output and the beamformer/beamcontroller input in Fig. 2. These
components, however, represent a major cost and thus a significant simpli-
fication resulted when it was shown that their function can be fully
incorporated in a properly modified weight vector w.
ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT TECHNOLOGY
Several technical areas need further development before all the promises of
DBF become practical:
1) Module Cost;
This of course is the major factor. Present costs are in the order
of $5-$10K per module which, for large arrays, is prohibitive. More
investment in NNIC appears to be the solution.
2) A/D Converters;
Available dynamic range and speed are still a limitation in radar
applications. High power consumption also is a problem. Again
MMIC seems to be the key.
3) Data Transfer and Interconnects;
The sheer volume of data generated by a DBF array is staggering.
For instance, a modest 64-element array with 10 MHz bandwidth and
60 dB dynamic range outputs 14 Gbits/sec to the processor. Pre-
processing at the element level and the use of integrated optics and
optical fibers may alleviate this problem.
4) Signal Processing Capacity;
The capabilities of analog system in many cases are difficult or
impossible to duplicate digitally. An 8x8 Butler matrix with 1 GHz
bandwidth, for example, requires 12 109 COPS and still has an
inferior dynamic range. Another example, which easily saturates
present processor capabilities is adaptive nulling by SMI for a full
scale DBF array. The solution here, apart from more powerful hardware,
seems to lie in a smarter algorithms and numerics and possibly
optical processing.
5) Self Calibration;
DBF systems, due to their module complexity, require accurate amplitude
and phase references at each element. The precision with which these
can be provided may well be the ultimate limit for the success of DBF's
most spectacular features: open-loop nulling, ultralow sidelobes and
in particular superresolution. Optical fibers, compact and flexible,
appear as attractive candidates for a calibration network.

CONCLUSION

In summary the technology exists to make modest size DBF arrays feasible
today. For the near future, the high cost will necessitate strong econo-

56
mizing with the number of digital channels, i.e., the number of spatial
degrees of freedom. This will initially lead to systems with DBF in only 1
dimension or with limited scan applications, such as DBF at the subarray level
or as a DBF feed in a reflector. For the more distant future, array antenna
systems that incorporate mixed analog and digital circuitry are envisioned.
Reconfigurable, switched analog subsystems will be used for their tremendous
bandwidth advantage and digital systems will realize more sophisticated
control algorithms. With the spectacular advances in high speed digital
electronics these systems may be here sooner than we think.
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