Addressing the Hidden Beam Problem Using a Modified Beamformer

A beamforming technique is proposed to solve the hidden beam problem in systems relying on sensing the medium. The approach is based on raising the depth of the nulls to enable transmission sensing by mobile terminals. The performance of the modified beam is compared with that of an original beam in terms of beam parameters such as directivity and half power beamwidth (HPBW). Results show that the modified beam raises the null depths significantly and satisfies the minimum power threshold level with relatively small changes in directivity and HPBW compared to the original beam. The proposed beamforming technique is a simple and efficient approach to the solution of the hidden beam problem.