ADAPTIVE ARRAY ANTENNA BASED ON SPATIAL SPECTRAL ESTIMATION USING MAXIMUM-ENTROPY METHOD

An adaptive array antenna can be considered as a useful tool of combating with fading in mobile communications. We can directly obtain the optimal weight coefficients without updating in temporal sampling, if the arrival angles and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the desired and the undesired signals can be accurately estimated. The Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) can estimate the arrival angles, and the SNR from spatially sampled signals by an array antenna more precisely than the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Therefore, this paper proposes and investigates an adaptive array antenna based on spatial spectral estimation using MEM. We call it MEM array. In order to reduce complexity for implementation, we also propose a modified algorithm using temporal updating as well. Furthermore, we propose a method of both improving estimation accuracy and reducing the number of antenna elements. In the method, the arrival.angles can be approximately estimated by using temporal sampling instead of spatial sampling. Computer simulations evaluate MEM array in comparison with DFT array and LMS array, and show improvement owing to its modified algorithm and performance of the improved method.