Beamforming design with adaptive variable redundancy arrays

This paper proposes a beamforming design method for interference cancellation using a special thinned array structure, termed variable redundancy array (VRA). VRA is analyzed with adaptive beamforming design techniques over a set of likely interference scenarios. The design criterion is determined by a compromise between complexity and performance levels, taking into account both the array geometry and adaptive beamforming methods. Eigenstructure analysis of the data covariance matrix is provided too. Extensive numerical simulations with several sets of interference scenarios show that VRA almost always is a very convenient choice with respect to uniform regular array (URA). This design method is also useful in both cases of fully adaptive beamformers and of partially adaptive beamformers, in order to reduce both physical and computational complexity