Beamforming and interference canceling with very large wideband arrays

Future radio telescopes are envisioned to be beamforming arrays containing hundreds to millions of elements distributed over thousands of km², with bandwidths that are 10% or more of the RF center frequency. It is awkward to analyze such systems using traditional narrowband beamforming theory. This paper presents a frequency-domain model that includes relevant features such as true time delay, distributed Doppler effects, and nonideal instrumental frequency response. Conventional beamforming - i.e., maximizing the gain in a certain direction subject to no other constraints - is analyzed in the context of the model. A simple method for suppressing interference in the beamformer output is also analyzed. In this method, a second beam is formed in the direction of the interference and subtracted from the output of the desired beam. Although the concept is sound, two problems are identified. First is the potential for partial or complete canceling of the desired source, along with the interference. The second problem is coloring of the noise spectrum, which may thwart the detection of weak spectral features. These problems are shown to be closely related to the array geometry, and some workarounds are suggested.