UWB beamforming architecture for RTLS applications using digital phase-shifters

In this paper a novel solution for coherent combination in ultra wide band (UWB) beamformings for real time locating systems (RTLS) is proposed. The architecture uses a double quadrature receiver and the time alignment is approached by digital phase-shifters. A comparison and evaluation with classical True Time delay (TTD) architectures is presented. Our proposed architecture achieves same performances than the TTD approach, showing that complex TTD modules could be replaced advantageously by a single base-band digital phase shifters. Moreover, our solution does not need higher sampling rates that make it suitable for low power consumption.