Microwave beamforming using analog signal processing

We have presented a mobile Ku band satellite TV antenna array which is adaptively controlled by a simple continuous-time analog circuit performing gradient descent. The system achieves tracking speeds in excess of 60deg/s. The analog controller is expected to result in reduced system cost, power consumption and simpler VLSI integration. The algorithm needs no knowledge of the target function and could therefore be used in various other beamforming applications. Future efforts will be devoted to a specialized VLSI implementation for smart antenna applications consisting of the analog algorithm as well as RF components.