Design of a Dynamic Beamforming Antenna for Wimax Radio Systems

This paper presents our design and development of an 8-channel adaptive beamforming antenna for new developments in radio technology: the emergence of chip-based components implementing the recently completed IEEE 802.16d-2004 (WiMAX) radio standard. WiMAX offers the potential of long range (up to 50 miles) and high bandwidth (up to 50 Mb/s) radio links. Although the new WiMAX standard offers the potential for using smart, adaptive antennas, this functionality has not been implemented. Our design will serve as a common platform for testing adaptive array algorithms including direction of arrival (DOA) estimation, beamforming, and adaptive tracking, as well as complete wireless communication with a WiMAX Radio. Heavy emphasis will be placed on ease of implementation in a multi-channel / multi-user environment. In the future, we hope to expand this interface to support dynamic radio channel selection via direct interaction with radio hardware or implementation of a cognitive radio system.