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Improved Butler Matrix Configuration for Smart Beamforming Operations

Konstantinos A. Gotsis*, George A. Kyriacou+, John N. Sahalos*


*

Radiocommunications Lab., Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece kgots@auth.gr, sahalos@auth.gr

Microwaves Lab., Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace GR-67100 Xanthi, Greece gkyriac@ee.duth.gr of 1200. Figures 1 and 2 give the typical schematic of a BM 88 and the eight orthogonal beams produced by the BMs single port excitation (1:0). The matrix feeds a linear array of eight rectangular microstrip patches.

Abstract In this work the authors propose a Butler Matrix (BM) based beamforming network (BFN) that feeds a linear antenna array. A BM 88 is integrated with a specific Switching Network (SN) and a group of Switched-Line Phase Shifters (SLPS), in order to properly drive the excitation of the antenna elements. The resulting configuration provides enhanced beamforming flexibility compared to a Switched Beam System (SBS) fed by a typical BM. Thus, a smart beamforming structure can be designed that combines the simplicity of a SBS with some of the advantages of an Adaptive Array System (AAS).

I. INTRODUCTION Beamforming increases the cellular capacity and coverage of a mobile base station. Smart beamforming systems are generally classified as either switched-beam systems (SBS) or adaptive array systems (AAS). Although an adaptive system might outperform a switched-beam one, its implementation is much more complex and costly. Thus, despite the great amount of research on adaptive beamforming and the related Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation algorithms, no particular standardization has been established. Due to simplicity, SBS are a quite attractive solution. In the literature one can find extensive studies that point out their effective operation in current mobile implementations, like Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) [1], [2]. However, a typical SBS has certain drawbacks. First of all its operation does not depend on DoA estimation, but on the highest power measurement at the base station receiver. The lack of DoA information joint with the usually small number of available beams, limit the accuracy of the beam pointing towards the desired signal, deteriorating the total performance. A Butler Matrix (BM) [3] is a widespread fixed beamforming network (BFN), which is used for multi-beam applications and consists of hybrid couplers, phase shifters, and crossovers. In [4] a comprehensive review of the BM functionality and its implementation has been given, and the design for a UMTS SBS has been proposed. A standard BM is a MM network, where M is the number of input/output ports that give a set of M different beams. Taking into account the radiation pattern characteristics, the degrees of freedom offered and the complexity of the implementation, the 8x8 dimensions are the most appropriate to cover an angular sector

Fig.1 Typical schematic of a Butler Matrix 88.

Fig. 2 Eight orthogonal beams produced by the single port excitation of a BM 88.

In [5], [6] the authors proposed a novel DoA estimation methodology for a SBS based on a BM 88. The method is based on the mapping between the signals angles of arrival and the power measured at the main input/output port of the feeding network. The mapping is exploited through the supervised learning of Neural Networks (NN). It has been shown that the typical configuration of the eight beams does not favour DoA estimation. Additionally, this fixed set of

beams does not provide any beamforming flexibility neither for the uplink nor for the downlink. In this work a specific BM feeding configuration is proposed that faces these drawbacks, enhancing the smart beamforming possibilities of a SBS. The paper is outlined as follows: Sections II and III describe respectively the design and functionality of a proposed Switching Network (SN) and the appropriate use of a group of Switched-Line Phase Shifters (SLPS). In Section IV a possible integration of these beamforming modules is discussed, whereas Section V concludes the paper. II. SWITCHING NETWORK A BM needs a SN in order to perform the appropriate beamforming and switching. The main rationale that guides the design of the proposed SN is the possibility of producing a set of beams with different characteristics compared to the eight orthogonal beams that come from the single port (1:0) excitation and the uniform illumination of the antenna elements. In particular the aim is to design a SN that in a practical way provides also the combined equal excitation (1:1) of the BM ports that leads to the cosine illumination of the antenna elements. Figure 3 shows the grid of seven beams produced by the 1:1 type of feeding. One can see that 1:1 excitation provides beams with lower Side Lobe Level (SLL), higher Crossover Level (CL) and wider Half-Power BeamWidth (HPBW) than the 1:0 case [6]. It has been shown in [6] that these radiation pattern characteristics favour the performance of the NN-DoA finding technique.

a 3dB power divider (Fig. 4). The drawback of this configuration is that the input power passes through the power divider, even for the 1:0 excitations. Thus, a power loss of 3dB is added to the insertion loss of the 3 switches (30.8 dB) used to drive the signal to each beam port. Without taking into account the losses of the microstrip lines, the result is a total loss of 5.4 dB.

Fig. 4 Typical schematic of a switching network for a BM 88 [8].

Fig. 5 Proposed schematic of the switching network for a BM 88.

Fig. 3 Seven beams produced by the combined equal excitation of the appropriate pairs of a BMs 88 beam ports.

Given the objective that the SN should support both single (1:0) and combined equal excitation (1:1) we move on to its design. Since in the 1:1 function the beams have to be adjacent, the combined feeding should involve a port from the group A (1R, 4L, 3R, 2L) with a port of the group B (2R, 3L, 4R, 1L). In [7] the authors give the schematic of a BM 44 SN and describe its control through the appropriate digital words. In [8] a simple SN is used for the beam switching of a BM 88. The network consists of a circuit of Single Pole Double Throw (SPDT) switches [9] in dendroid structure and

In order to overcome this problem the addition of two switches S1, S2 is proposed (Fig. 5). The S1 defines the type of feeding, while S2 drives the signal to either the group of ports A or B. The switchs output and therefore the signals route through the switches and the BM excitation can be determined by the appropriate digital words. In Fig. 4 one can see each switchs logical positions 1 and 0. Lets consider the transmission case. If the 1st bit of the digital word is 1, the single port function is activated and the circuit waits for 4 more bits in order to choose the desired input. For example the word 11100 drives the power to the input 2L, through the switches S1, S2, S3, S6 and S8. This route bypasses the power divider and leads to an insertion loss of 50.8 = 4dB. Compared to [8] there is a gain of 1.4 dB. If the 1st bit is 0, the signal is inserted into the divider and equally splits in the two groups of beam ports, activating the

combined excitation. Six more bits are needed so as to feed the desired combination of ports. For example the word 0010110, which corresponds to the position of the switches S1, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7 and S10, drives the equally divided power to the inputs 1R and 1L. The combination of the ports 1L and 1R give the beam 1L+1R as shown in Fig. 3. III. GROUP OF SWITCHED-LINE PHASE SHIFTERS A. Discussion The grid of seven beams provided by the proposed SN helps the better coverage of the desired sector and significantly improves the DoA estimation performance. Thus, it could be effectively used for the uplink. However, the downlink has different needs and the seven beams configuration may not be so efficient. Many of the services offered at the current mobile communications networks (email downloading, web surfing, multimedia applications, and others), result to a higher traffic load during the downlink (compared to the uplink). These needs would be better served through the directive downlink transmission as close as possible to the target-user. Given a linear antenna array the most directive beams come from the uniform illumination of the antenna elements [10]. Thus, the eight orthogonal beams could be used for the downlink, since they are more directive than the cosine illumination beams. However, the CL is quite low and the angular distance between the beam maxima is quite big. Thus, no continuous coverage and accurate transmission can be achieved with only these eight beams. In the sub section that follows, a practical configuration is proposed that exploits the single port excitation and the uniform illumination, in order to create an extra set of beams that enhances the standard set of the eight orthogonal beams. B. Design The proposition consists in the addition of a group of SLPS. The SLPS do not modify the SN or the layout of the typical BM; they are just connected between the last row of the hybrids and the antenna ports of the BM. This configuration is shown in Fig. 6, where for clarity each hybrids connection is separately depicted.

disconnected in Fig. 6) of the proposed structure, is the path of the typical BM that gives the orthogonal beams. The length of the other line (shown connected in Fig. 6), is chosen so that an extra phase n = (n 1) 22.50 is added at the nth antenna element. The objective is to increase by 22.50 the progressive phase difference produced by the excitation of each beam port. For example the beam port 1R should give, besides the predefined phase difference =22.50, also a =45.00. It should be noted that for the 1st element there is no phase shifter, since its phase is taken as a reference. Moreover, when the beam port 4R is excited, only the typical path can be chosen, since the extra phase difference gives a pattern with a maximum outside the desired coverage range. Figure 7 shows the enhanced grid of 15 beams resulting from the addition of SLPS at the output of the BM. The proposed grid satisfies the need for extra beams with maxima between the maxima of the standard 8 orthogonal beams. The CL is high, even between the edge beams where it is higher than -3dB. Between the rest of the beams the CL ranges from -1.9dB to -0.9dB. This means that anywhere in the 1200 sector a mobile station can be served by nearly the maximum of one of the main lobes, which have the narrowest possible HPBW. The 1:0 functions give narrower beamwidths from all the possible corresponding combined excitations 1:x, where 0 < x 1. On the other hand, the 1:0 beams have the highest SLL.

Fig. 7 Enhanced grid of 15 beams resulting from the addition of the SLPS at the output of the BM 88. The dotted lines correspond to the added beams.

Fig. 6 Addition of SLPS at the output of the BM 88.

Besides producing the desired radiation patterns, the SLPS addition is practical and easy to implement. Their integration in a single layer microstrip structure is simple and the SPDT switches offer very fast (nanosecond) switching between their two states. An important feature of the SLPS is their equivalent operation for both transmission and reception. The proposed way of their integration reserves the typical BM functionality and does not modify the SN, which has been designed for simplicity and minimization of losses. IV. SMART BEAMFORMING OPERATIONS The scope of the present work has not been the detailed description of a smart beamforming system, but the design of

A SLPS is a simple structure that uses two SPDT switches to drive the signal between the one of two microstrip lines of different length [11]. The length difference determines the phase difference between the two paths. The one path (shown

a feeding network and the description of its beamforming possibilities and potential operations. The block diagram of a potential SBS that consists of the proposed modules is given in Fig. 8. This SBS provides 22 beams with different characteristics and functionality. A possible operation could be the use of the seven 1:1 beams for the uplink and the 15 1:0 beams for the downlink. As it has been shown in [5] and [6], the 1:1 beams can give accurate DoA estimation for a varying number of simultaneous users and a varying Signal to Interference Noise Ratio (SINR). Thus, with a relatively small number of beams the DoA information can be acquired. Given the DoA of the target user, the 1:0 beam with the closest maximum can be used to serve the downlink communication. In order to reduce complexity, depending on the requirements of the link, only the typical set of the 8 orthogonal beams could be used for the downlink. Another alternative that would reduce the complexity of the feeding network, but would increase the administrative cost during the uplink and DoA estimation, would be the removal of the SN and the use of the 15 1:0 beams for both directions of communication.

controlled, through the appropriate digital words, by any appropriate beamforming algorithm. An effective solution could be the conjunction of the presented BM structure with the neural network DoA estimation method proposed by the authors [5], [6]. Such a solution would combine the simplicity of a standard BM based SBS with some of the attributes of an AAS. These attributes would be the DoA based operation instead of the higher power measurements and the more accurate transmission towards the direction of the desired user. The NN has lower processing time compared to an adaptive array processor that runs a typical adaptive beamforming algorithm. Given the instant response of the SPDT switches, this means that besides simplicity and effectiveness, fast decision and operation can be also achieved. To sum up the proposed feeding network can be integrated in a current mobile base station and encourage the wider use of smart antenna beamforming. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] K. I. Pedersen, P. E. Mogensen, and J. R. Moreno, Application and Performance of Downlink Beamforming Techniques in UMTS, IEEE Commun. Mag., pp. 134-143, October 2003. T. Baumgartner and E. Bonek, On the Optimum Number of Beams for Fixed Beam Smart Antennas in UMTS FDD, IEEE Trans. on Wireless Commun., vol. 5., no. 3, pp. 560-567, March 2006. J. Butler and R. Lowe, BeamForming Matrix Simplifies Design of Electronically Scanned Antennas, Electronic Design, Apr. 1961. T. N. Kaifas and J. N. Sahalos, On the Design of a Single-Layer Wideband Butler Matrix for Switched-Beam UMTS System Applications, IEEE Antennas and Propag. Mag., vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 193-204, December 2006. K. A. Gotsis, G. A. Kyriacou and J. N. Sahalos, Improved Neural Network DoA Estimation for a Switched-Beam System in a Multipath DS-CDMA Scheme, EuCAP 2009, pp. 186-190, Berlin-Germany, 2327 March, 2009. K. . Gotsis, K. Siakavara, and J. N. Sahalos, On the Direction of Arrival (DoA) Estimation for a Switched-Beam Antenna System Using Neural Networks, IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagat., vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 1399-1411, May 2009. E. Siachalou, E. Vafiadis, S. Goudos, T. Samaras, C. S. Koukourlis, and S. Panas, On the Design of Switched-Beam Wideband Base Stations, IEEE Antennas and Propag. Mag., vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 158167, February 2004. H. Novak, Switched-beam Adaptive Antenna System. PhD thesis, Technischen Universitat Wien, Wien, Nov. 1999. M/A COM Inc., GaAs SPDT terminated switch, Datasheet. C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, John Wiley and Sons, 1997. D. M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering. Addison-Wesley, 1990.

[5]

[6]

[7] Fig. 8 Block diagram of a SBS consisted of the proposed beamforming modules.

[8] [9] [10] [11]

In any case the proposed modules (the SN and the group of SLPS), provide beamforming flexibility. The optimum configuration depends on the requirements and the restrictions of a certain link. The next step of our work should be the quantification of the performance of the possible configurations, in order to reach some conclusions about the appropriate structure for certain conditions. V. CONCLUSIONS A typical BM 88 has been enhanced by the appropriate SN and the addition of SLPS. The proposed SN has fewer losses than similar networks and the reversible functionality of the feeding network is preserved. The SLPS provide radiation patterns with desirable characteristics, while their integration is practical and easy. The whole configuration can rapidly support beam switching, as it is based on SPDT switches that operate with nanosecond speed. The switches can be

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