Adaptive Antennas and Phased Arrays* Lecture #1

Adaptive Antennas and Degrees of Freedom

Alan J. Fenn, PhD MIT Lincoln Laboratory
*This work is sponsored by the Department of the Air Force under Air Force Contract #FA8721-05-C-0002. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the United States Government.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

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Course Content Breakdown by Topic

Lecture/Chapter Number
1
Adaptive Antenna Theory Jammer Nulling Radar Clutter Suppression Phased Array Theory Antenna Measurement Techniques Array Mutual Coupling Far-Field Characteristics Near-Field Characteristics Problem Set

(X=topic covered)
12 13 14 15 16

3 X X

4 X X

5 X X X

6 X X

7 X X

10 11 X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X X

X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X

X X

Book: A.J. Fenn, Adaptive Antennas and Phased Arrays for Radar and Communications, Artech, 2008

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Purpose of This Lecture

This lecture describes theory and simulations for the consumption of degrees of freedom for adaptive antennas with an emphasis on arrays

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Outline

Introduction / Background Adaptive Array Degrees of Freedom Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom Summary

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Introduction

Adaptive antennas and phased arrays have been explored extensively by numerous researchers since the 1950s Primary functions of an adaptive antenna system
Minimize (null) interference and jamming Suppress radar clutter Detect radar targets

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Types of Adaptive Antennas for Radar or Communications

Adaptive antennas can be implemented as an array antenna or as a multiple beam antenna (MBA)
Main beam(s) need to cover a field-of-view for radar targets or communications users, while nulling interference sources
Jammers

Many ways to implement adaptive antennas with analog and digital beamforming
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Antenna Radiation Patterns Before and After Adaptive Nulling

Before Nulling After Nulling

Radiation pattern null suppresses interference

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Fully and Partially Adaptive Arrays

Fully Adaptive Array Partially Adaptive Array

All array elements

contribute to adaptive nulling process

Some array elements contribute to

adaptive nulling process
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Some Factors Affecting Adaptive Antenna System Performance

Number of adaptive array elements (nulling channels), Na Adaptive nulling weights, wn, (amplitude and phase errors) Adaptive antenna diameter, D Nulling bandwidth, BW
Channel amplitude and phase mismatch over the nulling bandwidth

Number, strength, locations of interfering sources or jammers (characterized by signal vector, S(t))

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Array Received Signal Voltage Ski for Plane Wave Incidence

ith source

N1

N-element array of isotropic point receive antennas Received signal at kth element due to ith source
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General Case of M Interference Sources in the Field of View of an Adaptive Array

N-element array has N-1 distinct pattern nulls for suppressing interference N-element array has N degrees of freedom for suppressing interference and providing antenna gain in a desired direction

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ECM, ECCM, and Consumption of Degrees of Freedom for Adaptive Antennas

Electronic countermeasures (ECM) refers to jamming Electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) refers to adaptive antenna suppression of jamming By definition: Complete consumption of all N degrees of freedom occurs when the antenna does not adapt to the incident fields from a geometric arrangement of interference sources In this lecture, the jamming source distributions that fully consume the degrees of freedom of an adaptive nulling antenna are investigated
Analysis useful in evaluating adaptive antenna design Emphasis on adaptive array antennas

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Outline

Introduction / Background Adaptive Array Degrees of Freedom

Theory Results

Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom Summary

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Adaptive Array Output Voltage, Expected Value, and Covariance Matrix

Array output voltage is defined the product of the incident signal vector S(t) and adaptive weight column vector w(t) as,

where means complex conjugate transpose

Expected (mean) value of the adaptive array output power

where means complex conjugate and

In the above equation, R is the covariance matrix that contains all of the necessary information for nulling the interference with respect to a quiescent weight vector
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Steady-State Adapted Weight Equation

Applebaum-Howells analog servo-control-loop processor

is a filter time constant,

wa is the adaptive weight vector, I is the identity matrix, is the effective loop gain that provides the threshold for sensing signals R is the interference covariance matrix, w is a weight vector (steering vector) that gives a desired quiescent radiation pattern in the absence of interference sources

Steady-state solution for adapted weight vector

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Adaptive Weight Vector, Normalization

Adaptive antenna channel weight w normalization:

Weight vector in decibels (dB)

Adaptive array weights are normalized so that they do not turn off

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Interference-to-Noise Ratio (INR) and Cancellation Ratio

Interference-to-noise ratio (INR) is computed from the interference covariance matrix R and the weight vector w

Cancellation of interference achieved by an adaptive nulling antenna is defined here as the ratio of the interference-to-noise ratio before and after adaption

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Calculation of Covariance Matrix Elements

Covariance matrix elements

f1 f2 is the nulling bandwidth (denoted B), Sp(f) and Sq(f) are the received voltages in the pth and qth channels Rpq = R*qp , so R is a Hermitian matrix

Fractional nulling bandwidth (FBW)

fo is the center frequency, is the wavelength at the center frequency, c is the speed of light
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Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of the Interference Covariance Matrix

Covariance matrix R has eigenvalues k and eigenvectors ek

By the spectral theorem, the covariance matrix, which is Hermitian, can be decomposed in eigenspace

Since the covariance matrix is Hermitian, the eigenvalues are real and the sum of the diagonal entries of R is equal to the sum of the eigenvalues
The eigenvalues (k) are proportional to power and represent the degrees of freedom that are consumed in the adaptive nulling process
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Eigenvalues and Degrees of Freedom (DOF) Consumed

The eigenvalues (k) of the interference covariance matrix represent the degrees of freedom that are consumed in the adaptive nulling process

1 DOF Consumed dB

2 DOF Consumed

dB Noise Level

Index, k
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Index, k

Noise Level

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Adaptive Weight Vector and Adaptive Radiation Patterns in Eigenspace

Adaptive weight vector (wa) in eigenspace

Projections of the eigenvectors on the quiescent weight vector are subtracted from the quiescent weight vector to generate adaptive nulls

where

Adaptive radiation pattern in eigenspace

Quiescent radiation pattern

Eigenvector radiation pattern

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Weight Vector and Eigenvector Radiation Patterns: Example

Radiation Pattern Before Nulling Radiation Pattern for Weighted Eigenvector Associated with Dominant Eigenvalue Radiation Pattern After Nulling

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Conditions for Complete Consumption of N-Degrees of Freedom

N degrees of freedom of an N-channel adaptive nulling antenna (array or MBA) can be completely consumed when the following conditions are met
There are N uncorrelated equal-power interference sources in the field of view The interference power is large enough to be sensed by the nulling system The interference covariance matrix has N equal (or comparable) eigenvalues that are large compared to the receiver noise level The adaptive nulling system fails to form any adaptive nulls in the interference source directions
Adapted weight vector wa is a constant times the quiescent weight vector
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Eigenvalues and Degrees of Freedom (DOF) Completely Consumed

The eigenvalues (k) of the interference covariance matrix represent the degrees of freedom that are consumed in the adaptive nulling process

When all N degrees of freedom are consumed, all N eigenvalues are equal, and it follows that

Property of unitary matrix

When N degrees of freedom are consumed, the normalized signal Sn matrix must be a unitary matrix
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Orthogonal Interference Sources and Two-Element Array Example

N-element array and orthogonal sources: Dot product for signal vectors of ith and jth sources is zero (i and j not equal) Pi is the incident power from the ith source

Signal matrix is orthogonal

Orthogonal source angles

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Covariance Matrix and Eigenvalues for Two-Element Array and Two Sources
Covariance matrix:

where P1 and P2 are the incident powers of the two sources, and

The narrowband eigenvalues of Rn are found by solving det (RI)=0

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Interference-to-Noise Ratio (INR) for Two-Element Array and Two Sources

Quiescent weight vector:

INR before adaption

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Outline

Introduction / Background Adaptive Array Degrees of Freedom

Theory Results

Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom Summary

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INR and Eigenvalues vs. Source Power

Two-element array with two orthogonal interference sources at fixed angles (30)
P1 = 40 dB P2 variable power Nulling bandwidth 3.3%

Equal eigenvalues occur when P2 = P1

Two degrees of freedom fully consumed No cancellation of interference is possible

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INR and Eigenvalues vs. Source Position

Two-element array with two interference sources

P1 = 40 dB, 1 = 30 P2 = 40 dB, 2 = variable Nulling bandwidth 3.3%

Equal eigenvalues occur at orthogonal source position (2 = 30)

Two degrees of freedom fully consumed No cancellation of interference is possible
(deg)

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Outline

Introduction Adaptive Array Degrees of Freedom Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom

Theory Results

Summary

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Adaptive Antenna Design and Performance

Suppose there is some arbitrary adaptive antenna design and it is desired to evaluate its performance under a stressing interference environment
How should the interference sources be distributed to maximize consumption of degrees of freedom? Is there a way to automatically search for the interference source distribution to maximize consumption of degrees of freedom?

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Derivation of Figure of Merit for Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom

The signal matrix S can be written as the sum of matrix A and a residual matrix r

To consume N degrees of freedom, it is necessary for the signal matrix to be the closest approximation to the unitary matrix A It is desired to minimize the residual r in the least squares sense as

where

denotes norm such that

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Minimizing the Residual

By the singular value decomposition theorem, any matrix such as S can be decomposed as

where where are the positive square roots of the eigenvalues for V is the unitary eigenvector matrix for T is the unitary eigenvector matrix for Minimizing the residual, is performed as the following minimization problem

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Figure of Merit, F
Using properties of unitary matrices, it can be shown that the minimization problem in the previous slide reduces to

The minimum in the above equation occurs when

When the interference sources are located so that the sum of the square roots of the eigenvalues of R is maximized, consumption of the adaptive array degrees of freedom is maximized
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Distribution of Interference Sources to Maximize Consumption of DOF

Figure of merit for the jth interference source configuration:

The degrees of freedom of an adaptive antenna are maximized when

To numerically determine Fopt, a gradient search can be used by computing the directional derivative (gradient) of F

where
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are the gradient search directions

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Outline

Introduction Adaptive Array Degrees of Freedom Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom

Theory Results

Summary

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Seven-Element Arrays of Isotropic Receive Antenna Elements

Hexagonal Array

Ring Array

Initial arrangement of interference sources in a narrow cluster Gradient search moves sources to maximize consumption of DOF
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Gradient Search Results for SevenElement Hexagonal Array

Before Gradient Search
Source Locations (deg) Source Powers (dB) Ordered Eigenvalues (dB)

After Gradient Search

Source Locations (deg) Source Powers (dB) Ordered Eigenvalues (dB)

i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

i 0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2

i 0 0 60 120 180 -120 -60

Pi 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

j 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

j 56.9 10.7 10.7 0 0 0 0

i 1

i 0

i 0 10.8 70.8 130 -169.2 -109.2 -49.2

Pi 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

j 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

j 48.6 48.6 48.4 48.4 48.4 48.3 48.3

2 61.5 3 61.5 4 61.5 5 61.5 6 61.5 7 61.5

One degree of freedom consumed Cancellation = 48.5 dB

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Seven degrees of freedom consumed Cancellation = 0 dB

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Gradient Search Results for SevenElement Ring Array

Before Gradient Search
Source Locations (deg) Source Powers (dB) Ordered Eigenvalues (dB)

After Gradient Search

Source Locations (deg) Source Powers (dB) Ordered Eigenvalues (dB)

i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

i 0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2

i 0 0 60 120 180 -120 -60

Pi 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

j 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

j 56.9 11.4 11.4 0 0 0 0

i 1

i 4.6

i 23 -4.9 55.8 114.6 158.2 -106.5 -63.2

Pi 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

j 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

j 50.5 50.5 49.3 48.9 46.6 46.4 41.8

2 56.9 3 56.5 4 57.6 5 6 90 90

7 58.4

One degree of freedom consumed Cancellation = 42.1 dB

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Seven degrees of freedom almost completely consumed, Cancellation = 2.4 dB

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Outline

Introduction Adaptive Array Degrees of Freedom Maximizing Consumption of Degrees of Freedom Summary

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Summary

Adaptive antenna theory and consumption of degrees of freedom have been described Figure of merit and gradient search can be used to maximize consumption of adaptive antenna degrees of freedom Numerical simulations were used in finding an optimum distribution of interference sources for a hexagonal array and a ring array The techniques discussed in this lecture can be applied to arrays and multiple beam antennas Problems 1.1 to 1.6 in the book (Fenn, 2008) can be used to reinforce the material covered in this lecture
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Reference
Fenn, AJ, Adaptive Antennas and Phased Arrays for Radar and Communications, Artech House, 2008, Chapter 1.

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