Considerations for the hardware implementation of a four element digital beamformer

In this paper, we study the problems encountered in the hardware implementation of a four element digital beamformer. Specifically, because all existing adaptive beamforming antennae sample the multichannel analog signals simultaneously and adapt the weight coefficients of the spatial filter at every time step, our attention is mainly focused on two problems, one is the possibility of waiving the simultaneousness of sampling the four channel analog signals and the other is the possibility of reducing the real time running speed of the digital components that comprise the beamformer. Solutions to the above problems are required in order to reduce the cost which is the main reason why digital beamformers are not widely used in commercial communication systems. Positive answers to these problems are given in the paper.<>