FPGA implementation of a Bartlett direction of arrival algorithm for a 5.8ghz circular antenna array

This paper presents the design and prototyping of a Bartlett direction of arrival algorithm for an adaptive array antenna system using a Xilinx Virtex-5 FX70 FPGA. The algorithm was prototyped in both full custom VHDL hardware and in a Xilinx MicroBlaze soft processor to analyze the performance tradeoffs between hardware and software implementations. The design was tested using an 8-element circular antenna testbed. The implementation and analysis presented in this work will aid system designers to understand the tradeoffs between implementing algorithms in custom hardware versus in an embedded system and when a hybrid approach is more advantageous.