Digital beamforming for adaptive antennas in mobile communications: practical results from super resolution direction finding methods

The application of adaptive antennas to mobile communications is being studied within the EU RACE II Project TSUNAMI. In this application multiple beams have to be generated and directed by the base station towards mobile users as they request a connection move within and between cells and finally clear down from the system. The direction of arrival to the mobile must therefore be predicted as part of this process. However, the propagation environment as encountered within typical mobile communication systems is not ideal with shadowing, co-channel interference, severe stationary and fast fading being typical. Therefore, any direction finding methods must operate in these conditions. This paper therefore presents a number of practical results obtained from a field of super resolution direction finding algorithms undertaken with the ERA SCARP array antenna receiver system based on the DECT standard