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A Primer on Digital Beamforming
Toby Haynes, Spectrum Signal Processing
March 26, 1998
Introduction
Beamforming is the combination of radio signals from a set of small non-directional antennas to simulate a
large directional antenna. The simulated antenna can be pointed electronically, although the antenna does
not physically move. In communications, beamforming is used to point an antenna at the signal source to
reduce interference and improve communication quality. In direction finding applications, beamforming can
be used to steer an antenna to determine the direction of the signal source.
This introduction to beamforming covers the basic properties of antennas and antenna arrays, then explains
how beamformers are built using digital radio hardware and DSPs. Super-resolution direction finding is
also explained.
Antennas and Wavelength
An antenna for a radio transmitter converts electrical signals on a cable, from the transmitter, into
electromagnetic waves. The antenna consists of electrical conductors (wires, pipes, reflecting surfaces, etc)
that create electric and magnetic fields in the space around them. If the fields are changing, they propagate
outward through space as an electromagnetic wave at the speed of light.
Speed of Light c = 3x10
8
meters/sec
Any antenna that transmits can also receive. Passing electromagnetic waves excite currents in the antennas
conductors. The antenna captures some energy from passing waves and converts it to an electrical signal on
the cable.
When designing an antenna, its dimensions are specified in terms of the wavelength of the radio signal
being transmitted or received. Wavelength is the distance from the beginning of one electromagnetic wave
cycle to the next.
= c / f
c
is wavelength in meters
f
c
is the carrier frequency of the radio signal in Hz
c is the speed of light (3x10
8
meters/sec)
Wavelengths For Common Radio Signals
Signal Frequency Wavelength
AM Radio 1 MHz 300 meters
FM Radio 100 MHz 3 meters
Cellular Telephone 850 MHz 35 cm
Cellular PCS 1,800 MHz 17 cm
X-Band Radar 10,000 MHz 3 cm
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Antenna Radiation Patterns
A transmitting antenna generates stronger electromagnetic waves in some directions than others. A plot of
field strength vs. direction is called the antennas radiation pattern. Its always the same for receiving as
for transmitting.
An electromagnetic wave measured at a point far from the antenna is the sum of the radiation from all parts
of the antenna. Each small part of the antenna is radiating waves of a different amplitude and phase, and
each of these waves travels a different distance to the point where a receiver is located. In some directions,
these waves add constructively to give a gain. In some directions they add destructively to give a loss.
A half-wave dipole is a simple antenna that consists of a half wavelength of wire, cut in the center for
connection of the cable. The following figure shows its radiation pattern.
Half-Wave Dipole - Field Strength vs. Direction
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0.4
0.6
0.8
1
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
330
180 0
Length =

/ 2
Transmitter
Half-Wave Dipole Antenna
Coax Cable
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Directional Antennas
A directional antenna is one designed to have a gain in one direction and a loss in others. An antenna is
made directional by increasing its size. This spreads the radiating conductors of the antenna over a larger
distance, so that the constructive and destructive interference can be better controlled to give a directional
radiation pattern.
A satellite dish antenna can, simplistically, be considered a circular surface that radiates electromagnetic
waves equally from all parts. It has a narrow central beam of high gain, as shown in the following figure,
that is aimed at the satellite. As the dish diameter, in wavelengths, is increased the central beam gets
narrower. Notice the smaller beams, called side lobes, on either side of the central beam. Directions in
which the signal strength is zero are called nulls.
3 Wavelength Circular Aperture - Field Strength vs. Direction
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0.4
0.6
0.8
1
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
330
180 0
Diameter = 3

Circular Aperture Antenna

Linear Arrays
A simple directional antenna consists of a linear array of small radiating antenna elements, each fed with
identical signals (the same amplitude and phase) from one transmitter. As the total width of the array
increases, the central beam becomes narrower. As the number of elements increases, the side lobes become
smaller.
The following figure is the radiation pattern for a line of 4 elements (small antennas) spaced 1/2 wavelength
apart.
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1.5 Wavelength 4 Element Array - Field Strength vs. Direction
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
330
180 0

/2

/2

/2
Transmitter
Feed cables are all
the same length, so
all antennas have the
same phase.
4 Identical Omidirectional
Antennas
4-Element 1.5 Linear Array
If the spacing is increased to more than 1/2 wavelength, large side lobes begin to appear in the radiation
pattern. However, the central beam gets narrower because the overall length of the antenna has increased.
The following radiation pattern, for 4 elements spaced 1 wavelength apart, illustrates this.
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3 Wavelength 4 Element Array - Field Strength vs. Direction
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0.4
0.6
0.8
1
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
330
180 0
By keeping the overall length the same, and adding elements to reduce the spacing back to 1/2 wavelength,
the side lobes are reduced. Following is the radiation pattern if 3 more elements are added to the antenna
above to reduce the element spacing.
3 Wavelength 7 Element Array - Field Strength vs. Direction
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
330
180 0
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/2

/2

/2
Transmitter
7-Element 3 Linear Array

/2

/2

/2
Electronically Steered Arrays
By varying the signal phases of the elements in a linear array, its main beam can be steered. The simplest
way of controlling signal phase is to systematically vary the cable lengths to the elements. Cables delay the
signal and so shift the phase. However, this does not allow the antenna to be dynamically steered.
In an electronically steered array, programmable electronic phase shifters are used at each element in the
array. The antenna is steered by programming the required phase shift value for each element. The beam
pattern below is for an 8-element linear array with a progressive phase shift of 0.7 per element. The central
beam has been steered about 45 degrees to the left. A phase shift of 2 corresponds to one wavelength or
one carrier wave period, and more positive values are equivalent to saying that the signal is transmitted
earlier.
3.5 Wavelength 8 Element Linear Array, Progressive 0.7pi Phase Shift
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
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180 0
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/2

/2

/2
Transmitter
8-Element 3.5 Linear Array With Progressive Phase Shift of 0.7/Element

/2

/2

/2

/2
4.9

4.2

3.5

2.8

2.1

1.4

0.7

0
Power Splitter
Electronic
Phase
Shifters
Array Configurations
An antenna array does not need to be linear. Often, antenna elements are arranged in a circle so that the
array can form beams equally well in all directions. On vehicles, antenna elements may be placed in any
convenient locations and at different heights to form a 3-dimensional array. For these arrays, determining
phase shifts to steer the antenna is more complicated than for linear arrays.
Beamforming
In beamforming, both the amplitude and phase of each antenna element are controlled. Combined amplitude
and phase control can be used to adjust side lobe levels and steer nulls better than can be achieved by phase
control alone. The combined relative amplitude a
k
and phase shift
k
for each antenna is called a complex
weight and is represented by a complex constant w
k
(for the k
th
antenna).
A beamformer for a radio transmitter applies the complex weight to the transmit signal (shifts the phase and
sets the amplitude) for each element of the antenna array.
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1
1
a1
w1
2
a2
w2
3
a3
w3
4
a4
w4
4 3 2
Modulator
Carrier
Oscillator
Baseband
Signal
Power
Amplifiers
Transmit Beamformer
Beamformer
Transmit Radio Signal
Transmitter
A beamformer for radio reception applies the complex weight to the signal from each antenna element, then
sums all of the signals into one that has the desired directional pattern.
Summation Network
(Power Combiner)
Receive Beamformer
1

1
a1
w1
4

4
a4
w4
3

3
a3
w3
2

2
a2
w2
Radio Receiver
Beamformer
Beamformer Output
(radio signal with directional properties)
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Digital Beamforming
In digital beamforming, the operations of phase shifting and amplitude scaling for each antenna element,
and summation for receiving, are done digitally. Either general-purpose DSPs or dedicated beamforming
chips are used.
The rest of this discussion focuses on beamforming receivers. Digital processing requires that the signal
from each antenna element is digitized using an A/D converter. Since radio signals above shortwave
frequencies (>30 MHz) are too high to be directly digitized at a reasonable cost, digital beamforming
receivers use analog RF translators to shift the signal frequency down before the A/D converters. The
following figure shows a translator that shifts the entire cellular telephone uplink band at 824-849 MHz
down to the 1-26 MHz range.
Bandpass Filter at
F
RF
= 824 - 849 MHz
Mixer (multiplier)
Low Pass Filter
Cutoff at
F
IF_MAX
= 26 MHz
Local Oscillator
at F
LO
=F
RF
-F
IF
= 823 MHz
Intermediate Frequency (IF) output at
F
IF
= F
RF
- F
LO
= 1 - 26 MHz
RF Translator
A/D
Converter
Sampling Clock
Fs >= 2 F
IF_MAX
> 52 MHz
Digitized IF to digital down-converter
Once the antenna signals have been digitized, they are passed to digital down-converters that shift the
radio channels center frequency down to 0 Hz and pass only the bandwidth required for one channel. The
down-converters produce a quadrature baseband output at a low sample rate.
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Cos(2

F
C
t) Sin(2

F
C
t)
Digital Quadrature
Local Oscillator at
Carrier Frequency F
C
Digitized IF from
A/D Converter
(high sample rate,
many radio channels)
Low-Pass Decimating
Filters with Cutoff =
Channel Bandwidth
i(t) (in-phase) q(t) (quadrature)
Quadrature Baseband Output
(one radio channel, low sample rate)
Digital Down-Converter
The quadrature baseband i and q components can be used to represent a radio signal as a complex vector
(phasor) with real and imaginary parts. Two components are required so that both positive and negative
frequencies (relative to the channel center frequency) can be represented.
s(t) = x(t) + j y(t)
s(t) is the complex baseband signal
x(t) = i(t) is the real part
y(t) = -q(t) is the imaginary part
j is (-1)
For beamforming, the complex baseband signals are multiplied by the complex weights to apply the phase
shift and amplitude scaling required for each antenna element.
w
k
= a
k
e
jsin(k)
w
k
= a
k
cos(
k
) + j a
k
sin(
k
)
w
k
is complex weight for the k
th
antenna element
a
k
is the relative amplitude of the weight

k
is the phase shift of the weight
A general-purpose DSP can implement the complex multiplication for each antenna element:
s
k
(t) w
k
= a
k
{

[x
k
(t) cos(
k
) - y
k
(t) sin(
k
)] + j [x
k
(t) sin(
k
) + y
k
(t) cos(
k
)] }
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a
k
cos(
k
)
a
k
cos(
k
)
-a
k
sin(
k
)
a
k
sin(
k
)
Real part of
s
k
(t)w
k
x
k
(t) = i
k
(t)
y
k
(t) = -q
k
(t)
Complex baseband
signal from
k
th
antenna
s
k
(t)
Complex Multiplier
Imaginary part
of
Complex Weight w
k
To summation
at beamformer
output.
The following figure shows a complete digital beamforming receiver. One set of antenna elements, RF
translators, and A/D converters can be shared by a number of beamformers. All RF translators and A/D
converters share common oscillators so that they all produce identical phase shifts of the signal. Within the
digital beamformer, all digital down-converters share a common clock, are set for the same center frequency
and bandwidth, and their digital local oscillators are in-phase so that all phase shifts are identical. Each
DDCs baseband output is multipled by the complex weight for its antenna element, and the results are
summed to produce one baseband signal with directional properties. A demodulator would then follow to
recover information from the radio signal.
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Shared
Local
Oscillator
Shared
Sampling
Clock
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
1
(t)
w
1
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
4
(t)
w
4
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
3
(t)
w
3
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
2
(t)
w
2
Digital Beamformer
RF
Translator
A/D
To Other
Beamformers
RF
Translator
A/D
RF
Translator
A/D
RF
Translator
A/D
s(t)w
Beamformers complex baseband
output to demodulator
2 3 4 1
Digital Beamforming Receiver
Adaptive Beamforming
The complex weights w
k
for the antenna elements are carefully chosen to give the desired peaks and nulls in
the radiation pattern of the antenna array. In a simple case, the weights may be chosen to give one central
beam in some direction, as in a direction-finding application. The weights could then be slowly changed to
steer the beam until maximum signal strength occurs and the direction to the signal source is found.
In beamforming for communications, the weights are chosen to give a radiation pattern that maximizes the
quality of the received signal. Usually, a peak in the pattern is pointed to the signal source and nulls are
created in the directions of interfering sources and signal reflections.
Adaptive Beamforming is the process of altering the complex weights on-the-fly to maximize the quality
of the communication channel. Here are some commonly used methods:
Minimum Mean-Square Error The shape of the desired received signal waveform is known
by the receiver. Complex weights are adjusted to minimize the mean-square error between the
beamformer output and the expected signal waveform.
Maximum Signal-to-Interference Ratio Where the receiver can estimate the strengths of the
desired signal and of an interfering signal, weights are adjusted to maximize the ratio.
Minimum Variance When the signal shape and source direction are both known, chose the
weights to minimize the noise on the beamformer output.
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Often, constraints are placed on the adaptive beamformer so that the complex weights do not vary randomly
in poor signal conditions. Some radio signals include training sequences so that an adaptive beamformer
may quickly optimize its radiation pattern before the useful information is transmitted.
Smart Antennas
Adaptive beamforming systems for communications are sometimes referred to as smart antenna systems.
For cellular telephone, one base station with a smart antenna system can support more than one user on the
same frequency, as long as they are in different directions, by steering individual antenna beams at each
user. This is sometimes called spatial domain multiple access (SDMA). Its estimated that the capacity
of cellular telephone systems can be doubled by using smart antennas.
FFTs in Beamforming
In digital beamforming, many beamformers can share one set of antenna elements, rf translators, and A/D
converters. The beamformers may have their central beams pointed in different directions. In situations
where a fixed set of non-overlapping beams must be formed simultaneously (radar, sonar, direction-finding)
an FFT can implement many beamformers efficiently.
The following figure shows an FFT beamformer with N antenna elements. Each element requires a digital
down-converter. All DDCs produce a baseband sample simultaneously, and all of these are passed at once
to an N-point complex FFT. The FFT then produces a set of N complex outputs, each of which is the next
baseband sample for a different beam.
Shared
Local
Oscillator
Shared
Sampling
Clock
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
1
(t)
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
N
(t)
Digital
Down-
Converter
s
2
(t)
RF
Translator
A/D
RF
Translator
A/D
RF
Translator
A/D
2 N 1
FFT Beamforming
N-Point Complex FFT
Beam 1 Beam 2 Beam N
Complex baseband outputs, N beams
In this case, a spatial FFT is being performed: The FFT is processing a set of samples that are separated
in space (not in time). Therefore, its outputs are a set of samples that are separated in direction (not in
frequency).
FFT beamforming as shown above is not flexible. For a linear array, the N beams are fixed and equally
spaced in direction. They range from -90 to +90 degrees from broadside of the array. The beams are
orthogonal: the central peak of any beam lies in a null on all other beams. Such a set of beams is useful for
radar mapping, but not very useful for communications.
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It is possible to use FFTs for beamforming in communications. A set of FFT outputs can be combined,
using complex weights and sums as before, to form arbitrary radiation patterns. This is called beam-space
beamforming. The previous approach of combining baseband signals from different antenna elements is
called element-space beamforming.
Super-Resolution Direction Finding
The term super-resolution applies to the ability to measure the angle of arrival of a radio signal with
much higher resolution than the beam width of the antenna array. The method requires accurately measuring
the phases of the signals from the array elements and, from these, calculating the angle of arrival.
Angle of
Arrival

d
Antenna
Spacing
Wavefront

l
Path Difference
1 2
A wavefront from direction arrives at antenna 1 first. Then, after travelling an additional path distance l
it arrives at antenna 2.
l = d sin
The pah difference results in a phase difference between the signals from the two antennas:
= 2 l /
= 2 d sin /
A direction-finding system calculates the angle of arrival from the phase difference:
= sin
-1
( / (2 d) )
For a super-resolution result to be accurate, the arriving wave must be a direct signal from the source - a
plane wave with a straight wavefront. Signal reflections (multipath) and interfering signals cause super-
resolution systems to fail. A super-resolution system cannot operate if two or more signal sources share the
same frequency, since the receivers output phase no longer reflects the phase of an incoming plane wave.
Beamforming can be used for direction finding by rotating the central beam of an array to give maximum
received signal strength. With this method, the angular resolution is limited by the beam width produced by
the beamformer. Also, false measurements will occur if a side lobe is mistakenly steered to the signal
source, instead of the arrays central lobe. However, it is possible to measure the directions of multiple
sources and to identify the directions of reflections with a beamforming system.
For two antenna elements spaced at 4 wavelengths, the following diagram shows the radiation pattern that a
beamformer would produce. The main drawback of the beamforming approach - many side lobes unless
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many antenna elements are used - is apparent. A super-resolution system using the same two antennas could
measure direction accurately, provided that the only an undistorted plane wave is arriving.
4 Wavelength 2 Element Array - Field Strength vs. Direction
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References
John Litva and Titus Kwok-Yeung Lo, Digital Beamforming in Wireless Communications, Artech House,
Norwood, MA, 1996.
Warren L. Stutzman and Gary A. Thiele, Antenna Theory and Design, John Wiley & Sons, New York,
1981.