V.I. Djigan1

1 Institute for Design Problems in Microelectronics of RAS (Zelenograd, Moscow, Russia)

1 djigan@ippm.ru

Formulation of the problem. In radio engineering systems, search and tracking the angular position of the source of the received signal in the most known cases are carried out using the monopulse antenna devices. However, such devices require the usage of a several directional antennas and a complex sum-difference devices to combine the output signals of these antennas. If an Antenna Array (AA) is used as a directional antenna, then the AA calibration algorithms can be also used for this tracking. However, such the algorithms are slow, because they require a large number of the array output power measurements, which are proportional to the number of its antennas.

Target. To present a simple algorithm for searching the angular position of a signal source using the rectangular arrays.

Results. The operation of the proposed algorithm is based on the symmetrical perturbations (changes) of all the signal phases in the AA channels by the fixed values relative to their current values and is based on the estimations the values of the signals at the AR output after these perturbations. In a two-dimensional AA it is necessary to perform four such the perturbations, and in a linear AR it is necessary to perform the two ones. To increase the accuracy of the algorithm, it is proposed to use a correlator or a matched filter to estimate the output signals of the AA if these signals are the pseudorandom sequences. The paper presents the mathematical details of the proposed algorithm and the simulation results which demonstrate its efficiency.

Practical significance. The presented algorithm can be used to track the changes in the position of a signal source caused by the movement of this source or the movement of the AA itself. The algorithm can be implemented in the analog phased arrays containing controlled phase shifters in their channels or in the arrays with the digital beamforming, in which the phase perturbations can be implemented by the changing of the complex-valued weights. The usage of a correlator or a matched filter at the AP output allows the proposed algorithm to be used when receiving the signals under the conditions of the low signal-to-noise ratio.

Djigan V.I. Algorithm for informational signal source tracking using signal phase perturbations in symmetrical antenna arrays. Radiotekhnika. 2024. V. 88. № 11. P. 134−144. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18127/j00338486-202411-17 (In Russian)

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