Robust adaptive beamforming for large-scale arrays

For a large-scale adaptive array, heavy computational load and high-rate data transmission are two challenges in the implementation of an adaptive digital beamforming system. Moreover, the large-scale array becomes extremely sensitive to array imperfections. First, based on a restructured recursive linearly constrained minimum variance algorithm and a gradient-based optimization method, a new robust recursive linearly constrained minimum variance (RRLCMV) algorithm is proposed in this paper. The computational load of the RRLCMV algorithm is on the order of o(N), which is less than that of the conventional gradient-based robust adaptive algorithm. Then, a new efficient parallel robust recursive linearly constrained minimum variance (PRRLCMV) adaptive algorithm is proposed by appropriately partitioning the RRLCMV algorithm into a number of operational modules. It can be easily executed ill a distributed-parallel-processing fashion, sequentially and in parallel. As a result, the PRRLCMV algorithm provides an effective solution that can alleviate the bottleneck of high-rate data transmission and reduce the computational cost. Finally, an implementation scheme of the PRRLCMV algorithm based on a distributed-parallel-processing system is also proposed. The simulation results demonstrate that the new PRRLCMV algorithm can significantly reduce the degradation due to various array errors. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.