Development and demonstration of a software-defined radio array for adaptive beamforming

Abstract

This paper presents an implementation of a software-defined radio array, which is a low-cost digital beamformer that is suitable for researching and prototyping novel digital beamforming and array processing algorithms. The beamformer is a four-element 2.45 GHz antenna array with antennas driven by a collection of synchronized software-defined radios, which are low-cost transceivers that allow radio functions to be implemented in software using digital signal processing. The array is used for experimental studies on interference cancellation in high-multipath indoor environments. The studies conducted compare the performance of classical interference cancellation algorithms to novel interference cancellation algorithms in cases with and without a carrier frequency offset between an external transmitter and the software-defined radio array. The results find that the novel interference cancellation algorithm outperforms classical interference cancellation algorithms in cases with non-negligible carrier offsets.