Performance Analysis of Beamforming Based on DOA

for Smart Antenna Systems

Amara Prakasa Rao1, Prof. N.V.S.N.Sarma2
Dept. of ECE, NIT-Warangal
1
aprao@nitw.ac.in , 2sarma@nitw.ac.in

Abstract
This paper presents the DOA based
adaptivebeamforming algorithm of smart antenna
systems for mobile communications.Two stages are
involved to control the radiation pattern, while
maximizing the signal power towards the desired
direction and suppressing the interference from undesired
direction. The first stage consists of estimating the
directions of arrival of all wave fronts impinging on an
array. The second stage involves placing deep nulls in the
directions of the interferers. Simulations are performed to
investigate the performance of the algorithm.
Key
words
Multiple
Signal
Classification(MUSIC),Estimation of Signal Parameter
via
Rotational
Invariance
Techniques(ESPRIT),
Direction of Arrival(DOA),Linear Constrained Multi
Modulus Algorithm (LCMMA)
I.

INTRODUCTION

The demand for wireless mobile communication services is

increasing at a rapid pace throughout the globe. The increasing
demand for mobile communication services in a limited radio
frequency spectrum motivates the need for better techniques to
improve spectrum utilization. Smart Antennas are recognized as
a key technology for higher capacity and more coverage area in
3G/4G wireless networks. In cellular mobile communication
system, the base station coverage area is set by the
omnidirectional or sectorial antenna. Due to this transmission
most of radiated energy is wasted. If the signal energy is
directed to particularmobile set, lot of energy would be saved.
For this purpose the direction of arrival of mobile signal is to be
estimated. This can be done by the adaptive digital beamforming
antenna arrays, also known as smart antenna system(SAS). A
smart antenna is commonly defined as a multiple antenna
elements, whose signals are processed adaptively in order to
optimize its radiation pattern automatically in response to the
mobile radio channel.

Fig.1. Functional Block diagram of Smart Antenna System

The smart antenna system functions are mainly divided into
three sections. Those are (1) Selection of Antenna array
geometry (i.e. linear, circular, planar etc.,).(2) Selection of
Direction of Arrival estimation methods (MUSIC, ESPRIT).
(3)Adaptive beamforming algorithm. Smart Antennas use an
array of low gain antenna elements which are connected by a
combining network. Auniform linear array of elements is shown
in figure 2. When modelling an antenna array the following
assumptions are made.
-

Organization of this paper is as follows. Section II

provides an overview of the smart antenna system. In Section
III, the Angle of Arrival estimation methods (MUSIC, ESPRIT)
are presented.
The adaptive beamforming algorithm is
discussed in Section IV. The simulation results are presented in
Section V and conclusions are mentioned in Section VI.
II.

SMART ANTENNA SYSTEM

Smart antenna systems continually monitor their coverage areas

and the system adapts to the user s motion providing an antenna
pattern that tracks the user, achieving the maximum gain in the
user s direction. For this purpose a smart antenna combines
antenna arrays with digital signal processing unit to adapt the
pattern dynamically in response to the signal environment [1].
Figure1 shows the functional block diagram of smart antenna
system.

The spacing between array elements is /2. The

spacing between array elements is small enough that
there is no amplitude variation between the signals
received at different elements.
All incident fields can be decomposed into a discrete
number of plane waves. i.e, there are a finite number
of signals.
There is no mutual coupling between elements.
The bandwidth of the signal incident on the array is
small compared with the carrier frequency.

Fig.2. Uniform Linear Array with N elements.

III.

ANGLE OF ARRIVAL ESTIMATION METHODS

DirectionOf Arrival (DOA) estimation technology plays an

important role in enhancing the performance of adaptive arrays
for wireless mobile communications. Consider a number of
plane waves from M narrow band sources impinging from
different angles m, m=1,2, .M, into a uniform linear
array(ULA) of equi-spaced N elements, as shown in Figure2.
Using complex signal representation, the received signal in the
itharray element is[2]:

x i=

i=1,2, .N(1)
ESPRIT Algorithm:
is the signal of the mth wave,

Where
signal and

is the noise

) sin( m)

(2)

Where d is the spacing between the elements of the array, w is

center frequency and c is the speed of the light in free-space. In
vector notation the received signal is:
X(t)=AS(t)+N(t)

(3)

Where S(t) = [s1(t) s2(t)

..sM(t)]T is the vector of incident
signals, N(t)=[n1(t) n2(t)
..nN(t)]T is the noise vector, and A=
[a( 1) a( 2)
a( M)] is signal spatial signature. The input
covariance matrix of the array signal is :
H

Rxx=E[X(t) X(t) ]= AE[S(t)S(t) ]A +E[N(t)N(t) ]

H

=APA +

2
n

(4)

(5)

Where P is the received signal power matrix,and n2I is noise

power matrix. The eigenvalues of Rxxare the values{ 0,...., N-1}
such that |Rxx iI| = 0

The Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance

Techniques(ESPRIT) algorithm is another subspace-based DOA
estimation technique developed by Roy and Kailath[3] in 1989.
ESPRIT dramatically reduces the computational and storage
requirement of MUSIC and does not involve an exhaustive
search through all possible steering vectors to estimate the DOA.
The idea behind ESPRIT is to divide the array in two equivalent
sub arrays separated by a known displacement d.
ESPRIT inherently assumes-i) narrowband signals ii) M<N
narrowband sources iii) the sources can be either random or
deterministic iv) the noise is assumed to be random with zero
mean and v) multiple identical arrays(doublets).
The signals induced on each of the arrays are given by:
x1(t)= A1.S(t)+N1(t)
x2(t)= A1. .S(t)+N2(t)

(11)
(12)

where is a M x M diagonal unitary matrix with phase shifts

between the doublets for each DOA.
The total array output vector X(t)=

The eigenvalues, viof APAH are vi = i -

2
n

(6)

=A S(t) +N(t)

(13)

From elementary linear algebra, this implies that N-M of the

eigenvalues, vi ,of APAH are zero. M eigenvectors associated
with the signals and N-M of the eigenvectors of Rxxare equal to
the noise variance, 2n. The eigenvectors associated with the NM smallest eigenvalues are orthogonal to the M steering vectors
A. To search the noise subspace,form a matrix containing the
noise eigenvectors: Vn=[e1 e2
..eN-M].The noise subspace
eigenvectors are orthogonal to the array steering vectors at the
direction of arrival 1, 2, .., M. The Euclidean distance for each
angle of arrival d2 = aH( )VnVnHa( )=0 for corresponding to the
DOA of a multipath component. Then the DOAs of the multiple
incident signals can be estimated by locating the peaks of a
MUSIC spatial spectrum given by[2]:
PMUSIC( )= aH( )a( ) / aH( )VnVnHa( )(7)

Where A=

and N(t)=

The basic idea behind ESPRIT is to exploit the rotational

invariance of the underlying signal subspace induced by the
translational invariance of the sensor array [4].The signal
subspace can be obtained froma knowledge of the input
covariance matrix Rxx.If M< N, the N-M smallest eigenvalues of
Rxx are equal to
The M eigenvectors Vs corresponding to the
M largest eigenvalues satisfy the relation,
Range{Vs}=Range{A} , there must exist a unique nonsingular T
such that Vs=AT. The invariance structure of the array allows
the decomposition of Vs into V1 and V2 such that V1=AT and
V2=A T. This implies that

Root-MUSIC Algorithm:
For the case of a uniformly spaced linear array, the primary
motivation for computing the null spectra in spectral music
domain is that

Range{V1}=Range{V2}=Range{A} since V1 and V2 share a

common column space, the rank of V12=[V1| V2] is M. This
implies that there exists a unique rank-M matrix F, such that
[V1 |V2]F =V1F1+V2F2=ATF1+ A TF2=0

AH( i)Vn =0,

n=1,2,

Where
is the direction of arrival. Therefore, if
i
polynomialstructure is defined using the eigenvectors
corresponding to the noise subspace , i.e.,
Vn(z)=

n=1,2,

F spans the null space of V12. By defining = - F1F2-1 in(14), it

can be rearranged to obtain AT = A T which implies
AT T-1 =A

(15)

Now, assuming A to be full rank, which is the true as long as the

angles of arrival of each signal is distinct, (15) implies that

..N-M(9)

thenZi=
, i=N-M+1,
N, the signal zeros, are roots of
each of the above polynomials. It is defined
D(z)=

(14)

.N-M(8)

(10)

Note that the null spectrum is obtained by evaluating D(z) on the

unit circle.

T = T

(16)

Thus, the eigenvalues of

must be equal to the diagonal
elements of , and the columns of T are the eigenvectors of .
Aeigendecomposition of
gives its eigenvalues and equating
them to leads to the DOA estimates angles:
i

i=1,2,

..M

(17)

improve the resolution and very narrow spikes are generated at

signal arrival by MUSIC algorithm.

IV.ADAPTIVE BEAMFORMING TECHNIQUE

The Linearly Constrained Minimum Variance (LCMV) is
one of the simple and old techniques to adapt the antenna array
beamformingpattern [5]. It depends on minimizing the output
power while satisfying some constrains on the desired signal
direction. The minimization of the output power in this case will
force the array output to be zero [6] which leads to the main
disadvantage of the LCMV, namely, it fails to capture the signal
when multipath copies impinge the array. Constant Modulus
Algorithm (CMA) technique was applied forbeamforming[7]
and solved the problem of capturing multipath signals. The
LCMV algorithm holds the null constrains but fails in multipath
environment, while, the CMA captures the multipath
components but fails to hold the null constraints during the
adaptation. The Linearly Constrained Multi Modulus Algorithm
(LCMMA) is the modified version of CMA with
additionalconstraints [8]. This algorithm takes the advantages
and avoids the disadvantages of the above algorithms.
i) LCMV:
The received signal at the array input X=AS+N

(18)

The array outputy=WHX

(19)

Fig.3.Normalized pseudospectrum plots for direction of arrivals

at 200,600,and 700 for the linear array of 21 elements by Music
algorithm with different time samples.
Case 2: Influence of array element number
In this case, how the number of array elements effects on
estimation of direction of arrival for both algorithms are studied.
As the number of elements increases the estimated results are
improved in both methods.

The linearly constrained LMS is defined as

MinimizeWHRxxW subjected to CHW=f

(20)

Where W is the array weight vector,Rxx is the received signal

covariance matrix, C and f are the constraint matrix and the
response vector respectively. The remaining degree of freedom
will be used for minimization. The LCMV problem is solved
iteratively by the update equation (19).
WK+1=P(Wk - yk*Xk)+F
W0=F, P=I-C(CHC)-1CH

(21)
F=C(CHC)-1f

(22)

Where k is the time index, is the step size.

ii) LCMMA:
The Multi Modulus Algorithm(MMA)is the generalization of
the CMA[9]. The LCMMA update equation will be
WK+1=P(Wk - ek*Xk)+F

(23)

ek=(|yik|2 R2 )yik+j(|yjk|2 R2)yjk

W0=F, P=I-C(CHC)-1CH

(24)

F=C(CHC)-1f (25)

Where yi ,yj are the real and imaginary parts of y.

V.SIMULATION RESULTS
Simulation study has been carried out for a 21 elements equi
spaced linear array.The inter element spacing is 0.5 . Three
independent, non-coherent, equal power signal sources were
used for the simulation study. The signal to noise ratio is 20dB.
Case 1: Influence of time samples.
Figure 3 shows angular arrival spectra for the different number
of time samples k=50, and 5000 for the linear array of 21
elements. This shows that the large number of time samples will

Fig.4. Normalized pseudospectrum plots for direction of

arrivals at 200,600,and 700 by Music algorithm with different
number elements in the array.
Figure 4 shows angular arrival spectra with different number of
elements M=25, and 5 elements for uniform linear array by
MUSIC algorithm. Error will be more at small number of
element array. Root Music gives more resolution than the
MUSIC can be seen in Figure 5. This evaluation concentrates on
the performance of ESPRIT using different number of elements.
Figure 6 depicts angular arrival spectra for N=25and 11.It shows
that as the number of elements in the array increases the
estimated error decreases.

Table-I Simulation Results of Music, Root Music and ESPRIT

Algorithm
Music
Samples
K=5000
K=50
No.of
elements
N=25
N=5
Fig.5. Normalized pseudospectrum plots for direction of arrivals
at 200,600,and 700 for the linear array of 21 elements by Root
Music algorithm with different time samples.

Root Music
K=5000
K=50
ESPRIT
N=25
N=11

User signal
directions(deg)
60
20
70
60
20
70
60
20
70
60
20
70
60
20
70
60
20
70
60
20
70

VI.

Estimated
Angle(deg)
60.125
20.125
70.125
60
20
70.125
60.125
20.124
70.125
59.125
20.625
70.125
60.125
20.125
70.125
60
20
70
61
20
69.25

Percentage
Error
0.208%
0.625%
0.178%
0.178%
0.208%
0.62%
0.178%
-1.458%
3.125%
0.178%
0.208%
0.625%
0.178%
1.666%
-1.071%

CONCLUSION

This paper shows the performance analysis of DOA

based smart antenna beamforming. Three methods of directional
arrival algorithms are studied and also observed how the
performance of the algorithm depends on different parameters
like samples, number of elements, etc.,. As number of
samples/elements increases, the resolution of the algorithm is
improved. Deep nulls are placed at 200 and 700 with -60dB and
-40dB respectively by using LCMMA beamforming algorithm.
Fig.6. Normalized pseudospectrum plots for direction of
arrivals at 200,600,and 700 by ESPRIT algorithm with different
number elements in the array.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

Fig.7Radiation pattern of 21 elements linear array with main

beam at 600deg, and deep nulls at 200deg and 700deg using
LCMMA.
The number of impinging signals on the arrayand associated
amplitudesare estimated by using DOA algorithms such as
MUSIC and ESPRIT. These angles are given to beamforming
network. The Linearly Constrained Multi Modulus Algorithm
(LCMMA) is used to adapt the weights of the array to steer the
main beam in direction of desired signal and placing deep nulls
in unwanted directions. Figure 7 illustrates the radiation pattern
of 21 elements linear equi spaced array with signal of interest at
600 and placing deep nulls in the directions of signal not of
interest at 200 and 700 degrees respectively. Table I shows the
performance analysis of DOA algorithms.

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

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