Using 1-D Variable Fractional-Delay Filters to Reduce the Computational Complexity of 3-D Broadband Multibeam Beamformers

A multibeam filter bank (MBFB) is proposed for recovering the broadband far-field signals received from multiple directions while rejecting interfering signals and noise. The MBFB consists of two sections. The first section employs variable fractional delays and independently steers the directions of the multiple beams. It achieves low complexity by using the Farrow structure. The second section achieves low complexity by maximal decimation methods and by exploiting the spatial symmetry of a 3-D double-frustum-shaped passband. Superior performance and lower complexity compared with previous methods are numerically confirmed for a typical narrow-angle broadband multibeam beamformer of the type that could be used in radio astronomy.