Direction Finding and"Smart Antennas"

Using Software Radio Architectures

Software radio architectures,originally developed for military applications,
are now becoming economically viable in commercial products becauseof the
rapid advance of DSP technology

Joseph Kennedy and Mark C. Sullivan

pcrational tcsts and demonstra- ationalmilitary digital HFcommunicationssystem.

tion5 o f 5ystems based on software The hardware required to implement the system
radios are currently being pcr-
formcd i n thc 800 MHz mobile
cellular radio band. lhesc field
trials arc formobile unit geoloca-
tion systems and adaptive phased array "smart
antenna" appliques. The geolocation system trials
are in response t o the demand forhigh confidence
gcolocation of mobile units for enhanced emer-
gcncy91 I scnricc andforusc in thc US.Department
of Transportation's Intelligent VehicleHighway
System (IVIIS) initiative. The smart antennaarray
appliques address the ccllul;lr service providers'
nccd for murc USCI- channel capacity and/or geo-
graphic covcragc from cxisting hasc station instal-
lations. Software radio architectureswere selected
bccausc of thcir ability to provide superior per-
formance ;It low life cycle cost. These systems
use 4 to 8 widehand coherent channels andfully
charactcrizc thc arrivingR F energy to either
geolocale the emitter or lo maximize the carrier-
to-intcrfercncc (CiI) ratio.
Software Radio Background
he application of software radio techniques to evolving air standards, and rcquirements fornew
T ..
mdltary communication?was conccived in the
1970s. The initial goal was to provide higher
fidelity in the HF band, where over-the-horizon than othcr competitive technologies, providing
communications via ionospheric propagation
were important. 'I'heHF band is ideally suited for
tcsting softwarc radio principles fortwo reasons.
First. advanced signal processingis uecessary i n
the €IFband because of the highly dynamic nature
of the channel due t n ionospheric propagation
and also because of the high density of signals.
Sccond, thc HF band spans only a few tens of
mcgaherlL, and generally only about 10 to 2C1 per-
cent of the band will propagate ovcr the horizon.
Softwarc radios capable of processing even hun-
dreds o f kilohertz of bandwidth may thus bc functions using software radio architectures.
effective in operating over RF bands of potential
interest.
Software radio architcctural concepts were
reduced LO practice i n about 1Y80 in the first oper- tering is performed by a spccialized decimating
filled many racks and consumcd a great deal of
power. Thesystemprovided simultaneoua coverage
of only 750 kHzof the H F band with a dynamic
rangc of lcss than 60 dB. Still, the ability to employ
sophisticated signal processing algorithms, even
in this modest hardware configuration, proved
the worthof software radio techniques.
Exponential increases in DSP technology pcr-
formancecoupledwith reductionsinsizeandpower
(Moore's Law') over the last 20years have opened
up applicationsof software radios toline-of-sight
RF bands. Throughout the '80s and '90s. these
systems have been upgradcd throughfive genera-
tions.
'The first few generationsof software radioswerc
developed to provide enhancedfidelity and flexi-
bility unavailable from analog receivers. Chang-
ing needs could be metquickly and inexpensively
with software upgrades. This abilityto adapt to
difficult problems makes the software radio
attractive in commercial telecommunications
applications, where infrastructure equipment
might otherwise quickly become ohsolete due to
cumulative double digit growth in markets, rapidly
services. The action of Moore's Law has driven the
cost of the software radio down at a rate greater
the ultimate molivation for theiruse in the com-
mercial telecommunications industry
Application to CellularIPCS
Infrastructure
he current generationof commercial wireless
T products employs readily available DSP tech-
nology to digitize theR F spectrum with great
fidelity and then perform all of the base station
Most ol these functions are performedby execut-
ing softwarc on a general-purposeDSP processor.
but the first stage01Irequcncy conversion and fil-
 -
The action
of Moore’s
Law has
driven the
cost of the
sofhvare
H Figure 1. Tjpical . p e m layout.
radio down
at a rate
downconverter chip producedby Harris Semi- Cellular-basedwide areasurveillance techniques
conductor and others. Thiscircuit implements a arc bcing evaluated foruse in automobile traffic greater than
cascaded integrator-comb filter followedby a monitoringapplicationsbecauseoftheircomparative
conventional transversal filter to provide compu- advantage over magnetic sensors buried in the other
tationally efficient sample rate conversion from roadway. video cameras, and other cc~nventional
the tens of megahertz at theAID converter to the techniques. These advantages include:
tens of kilohertz occupied by the signal [ 2 ] . Area coverage based on squaremiles, not vehicle competitive
Using software radio techniques,a common count or road miles.
hardware platform may provide all of the current
base station functions and yet retain enough
No disruption of road scrvicc for installation or technologies.
repair.
flexibility to meet future requirements through Ordersofmagnitude lower incost thanloop-based
alternative software application programs. The approaches.
products are configured from a set of hardware Very high reliability withlow maintenance
and software modules. interconnected using costs.
industry standard mechanical, electrical and * Other uses include fleet management and
software interfaces. These modulesmay be com- emergency assistance.
bined to provide user-configurable equipment Geolocation equipment could be owned and
suites including complete Cellular!PCS macro- operated by cellular senice providers.
and microcell base stations and “Smart Antenna” CAPITAL geolocatesmobile users of cellular
appliquks. Software selectable options include radios through the reception and processing of
domestic and international air standards. basc R F signals emitted by ordinary mobile cellular
station controller-to-switch interfaces, fixed telephones. In this application the contentof thc
omnilsector or “smart antennas,” andnew service signal is o f no interest and the privacy of the user
features such as fraud detection and mobile ter- is protected by not demodulating the audio por-
minal gcolocation. tion of the signal and by replacing the electronicseri-
al number with a randomly chosen identifier.
Geolocation is achieved using either the Reverse
CAPITAL Direction Finding Voice Channel (RVC) or the Reverse Control
Operational Demonstration Channel (RECC) transmittedby the mobile
“probe” behicle. The system geolocates the emit-
ne example of commercial equipment using ter towithin -100 meters using a combination ol
0 software radio architecturesis the Cellular techniques. Theline of bearing to the emitteris
Applied to IVHSTrackinggi Location (CAPITAL) estimated at eachreceiving site using the Alter-
project, currently undergoing field trials in the nating Projcction (AP) maximum likelihood
Washington, D.C. suburbs. The concept behind direction-finding algorithm [4, 71. Time of arrival
CAPITALis that automobile trafficcongestion may for each signal is also measured with respect to
be monitored by tracking the progress of vehicles a GPS time reference so that time-difference of
equippedwithceIlularphones.Thiscomprehensive arrival (TDOA) techniquesmay also be employed
program demonstrates allof thc capabilities of to fix the location. If the RVC is being processed,
such a system, beginning with the collection and then thcfrequency of the Supervisory Audio Tone
processing of cellular data and proceeding to the (SAT) is used to determineif the receiwd signals
dissemination of traffic information to remote are from a common mobileunit, or from interfer-
usersandin-vehicleequipment.Theoperationa1test ing mobile transmitten.
makes extensive use of the in-place cellular infra- R F signals are received at multiplereceiving
structure for both wide area automobile traffic sites, characterized by angle of arrival, time
congestion monitoring and communications. stamped, andthen passed to a common site where
Geolocation equipment has been colocated at the geolocation is determined. A typical layout
selected towers to collect cellular phone usage is shown in Fig. 1.
statistics and to geolocate phoneso n designated Geolocation equipment basedonsoftware radios
roadways. is located at selected towers and interconnected
-

MagazineIEEE Communications May 1995 63

 Antenna
RF
array
Frequency reference
Figure 2. Hardware block diagram.
through existing backhaul links to a control sub-
system at the Mobile Telephone Switching Office
(MTSO). In Fig. 1, a transit busis shown commu-
nicating through a basestation via a cellular tele-
phone. Geolocation equipment located at one or
two other sites are receiving the mobile cellular
transmission and estimating aposition. The algo-
rithms employed by the system to combat multi-
Mobile at R e s t
6031 Hz SAT
837.06MHz
l components of the desired signal,wbich will all
Figure 3. PDAgram showing mulilputh.
1
Figure 4. PDAgram showing muitipnth and interference.
64
a-
RF recewer
(8 channel)
Baseband 8 %
Digital
narrowband
(8 channel)
path and interference would beall hut impossible
to implement without the useof software radio
technology. Geolocation accuracy is qnhanced by
the following features:
GPS-derived clocks provide less than100 ns
differential timing error from site to site.
GPS-based tower siting removes any ding-based
bias errors.
Coherent multichannel timedelay allows DSP-
based spatial filtering to be used to combat
multipath and interferenceeffects.
Phase is calibrated to hundredths of a degree
through DSP.
A block diagram of the CAPITAL hardwareis
shown in Fig. 2. Signals from the eight-element
antenna array areblock downconverted to anIF
before the entire band of interest is digitized. Eight
digital tuner ASICs coherently downconvert each
narrowband channel being monitorgd to a zero
I
i IF complex baseband format.The resuping narrow-
band datais then processed by Intel is60 chips in
the Signal Processing Unit.
Software implemented in the“C” language
enumerates and isolates the components of the
received signal usingthe AP algorithm and spa-
tial filtering.The SAT frequency of each compo-
nent is then measured to distinguish between
exhibit the same frequency, and those of co-
channel interference, whichwill generally be
assigned a different frequency. The isolated com-
mon SAT signals are then cross correlated to
identify the componentof the desired signal that
arrives earliest. The components arriving later
are deemed tohave resulted from multipath prop-
agation and are discarded. The lineof bearing
and timeof arrivalof thedirect-raycomponent are
sent to a central site over aT1 link to complete
the geolocation of the emitter.
The major impediment to reliable geoloca-
tion of mobile units in the cellular telephone
band is severe multipath propagation. The
effects of this phenomena must be mitigated in
order to achieve accurate position estimates with
low variance. Typical examples of the multipath
encountered in the suburban Washiqgton, D.C.
operating environment were collected using
instrumcntation in the geolocation equipment.
Specular multipath can be characterized in terms
of power, delay, and angle-of-arrival relative to
the direct ray.
IEEE Communications Magazine * May 1995
 .
iiii C. t -
_
I
-
.
a n d butter
Digital
beamformer
Isolated
signal 1
SATs
Find f i r s t recelpt
l and
send to GCS
i
Angle and TOA
W Figure 5. PDAgram iignu! isolution process.
The ideal tool to measure these parameters is
the software radio,with its inhercnt fidclity and
digital storage capability. The signal parameters
may be displayedin a “PDAgram“ (Power-Delay-
Angle diagram) such as the example shown in
Fig. 3. This PDAgram was gcncrated from data
collected by the CAPITAL system and shows three
signal components, the dircctray shown on the“ 0
delay axis and two multipath components with
diffcrcntial path length delaysof about 80 meters.
Figure 4 shows another PDAgram ohrained from
a signal data record exhibiting multipath and
interference. Onesignal exhibits a SAT frequency
of 6000 Hz and the other. interfering, signal
originates from a cell using a 6030 Hz SAT fre-
quency assignment. Note that the interlerer also
has a multipath component present.
This record was processed to determine direc-
tion of arrival for thc desiredsignal. The desired
mobile signal multipath components,the interfer-
ing mobile (shownin a different color), and inter-
fering mobile multipath component had to he
removed to determine the correct angletime of
and
arrival for the “correct” direct ray.
Once thcsignal
components have been isolated, the software
examines the SATto detcrminc which components
came from interfering cellular users or from mul-
tipath reflcctions. The process used to isolate the
signals is shown in Fig. 5.This processis employed
in thc DF equipment to raise the confidence in
the geolocationestimatesby being sure the “right”
signal is bcing geolocated. The resultis accurate
geolocation needed for Emergency91 1 service.
f N
P
“Smart Antenna“ Arrays
nother commercial application of software
A radio technology is the “Smart Antenna”
appliquC for exixing base stations.A field trial at
a service provider’s network this Spring will be
used to evaluate the ability of the ”Smart Antenna”
to increase CiI for an Advanced Mobile Phone
Service (AMPS) system in an area with a very
high densityof users.
Incrcascd uscr capacity and expanded geo-
graphic coverage from existing installations are
the two strong economic motivations voiced by
service providers as the impetus for these devel-
opments. The need for increased areacoverage is
of primary concern in rural environments and for
prospective PCS providers. Increases in user
capacity are desired by existing service providers
for high-use areas where they are faced with loss
of potential revenue, customer dissatisfaction,
and reduction in spectrum available for AMPS
created by the introductionof digital voicc scrviccs.
Focusing on the capacity challenge, the real
need is to make morevoice channels available in
a given geographic area in the finite spectrum
allocated. When translating this operational need
to a technical requirement for an antenna system,
the need is not for a steerable “higher gain” array,
but instead an arraywhich can increase the carrier
to interference ratio(CII) at both thebase station
and the mobileterminal. If this can be achieved, then
more RF channels canbe added to the base sta-
tions in the area withoutdriving the CII helow an
-Preliminary
acceptable limit. Suppose that the channelsi n a but the directivity which haa value in trying to
conventional system without an array havc bccn maximize C,a.The “lack of gain” in the directionof
allocated to maximke capacity subject to a minimum interference, ideallya null, may be more effective
acceptable CII. If the smart array is employed, the than gain in the direction of the desired signal.
analyses C/I will increase, allowing the additionof morc Thc second approachis the mitigation of mul-
channels until the C/l is again brought to a minimumtipath fading. C/I budgets are generally designed
indicate that acceptable level. By increasing theC/I of the with a significant marginfor slow and fast fading.
desired signal forhoth theforward and reverselinks, For conventional mobilc radio systcms, fast fad-
the smart array provides more channel capacity. ing inducedby multipalh propagation requires an
software- There are three approachcs which can be used additional link margin of 8 dB [3].If the smart array
when designing a smarl array to maximize C/I. can minimize the effectsof destructive specular
radio-based The first and most obviousis to creategain on the
array in the intended direction using antenna aper-
multipath combining, most of this margin maybe
recovered. The multipath components present in
ture. Thisis done by using physically directive ele- the PDAgrams shown in Figs.3 and 4 are typical
“Smart ments, or by combining the outputsof morc ofthosefoundinalong-termexperimentperformed
elements to create aperture, and thusgain. It is in the Washington, D. C. area to characteri~e the
Antenna ’’ important to notethat it is not thegain that is ofvalue, mobile radio propagation environment. Preventing

appliquks
can enhance
the CjI in
both the
forward and
reverne link ~

i
27T I
I

1 PDAgram and array responsefor single signal withno muitlpath.

to allow
f i e 0
reuse of
3 to 1.

1 muitlpathforresponse
PDAgram
array and

PDAgram and array response for combined multipath and tnterference.

-
Figure 6 . PDAgrams and away response.y offhe ‘‘Srnafl Antenna. ”

66 IEEE Communications Magazine * May 10Y5

the significant losses inC!I induced by multipath
propagation is one very effective usc ofa smart
antenna array.
The final approach uscdto maximize CiI is the
identification and nulling of interferers. When
designing an antenna element combiner,i t is
generally much easierto form sharp nulls than beams
for a given number of elements in the array. Itis
generallyeasiertoplace a lOdB null on aninterferer
than to createa beam with 10 dB of gain in the
direction of thc desired signal. The operation of
the “Smart Antenna”is illustrated in Fig. 6 . In
thc first pairof graphs, the PDAgram showsa
single component and the corrcsponding array
response shows a single beam. In the second pair
of graphs, the PDAgram showstwo multipath
components. The array responsenow includes
gain with phasc shifts to coherently combine
these components with the direct ray. In thc third
pairofgraphsasourceofinterferenceispresentwith
multipath and the array response shows corre-
$7former

sponding nulls.
Other important factorsto consider in designing

v
“Smart Antenna”appliques are theability to form
bcams on the reverse control channel access Multtplex
requests which arrive at unpredictable directions
and times, the ability to interface to an existing
basestationwithoutviolatingproprietarydatainter-
face agreen~ents and disrupting hand-off manage-
ment, and thc ability to maintain the necessary
linearity in the equipment with increased dynamic converter
range (> 80 dB) imposed by higher antenna gains
and morechannels per base station.
Software radio architectures support the imple-
mentation of all three approaches tomaximize 1 Baseband
CII and also address the factors mentioned above. to RF
The architccture for the N-channel beamformer converston
is shown in Fig. 7. Each antenna clcmcntis fol- I
lowed by a wideband RF to baseband converter,
where the entire operatingRF band is moved to t
baseband at vely high dynamic range. The digital To Input port of exlsting base station
hardware is a combination of custom boards and -~ -~ ~~

commercial “off-the-shelf” hoards.Digital tuncr W Figure 7.Wideband digital beamfonner architecture.

ASICs coherently downconvert each narrowband
channel toa zero IF complex bascband format.
The digital beamformer is implemented in Oncetheyarecalculated,thedataisrcadoutofRAhl
assembly language software cxccuted by a Texas through the beamformer. Signalswith unpredictable
Instruments TMS320C40 DSP chip. Assembly arrival timcsand directionsof arrival may thus be
language was chosen aftera “C” language imple- accommodated uaing the RAM delay buffer to
mentation lailed to executein real timc. Each of give the beamformingalgorithmenough time toini-
thc resulting narrowband signals is then upcon- tialize the steering vector. The algorithm also
verted digitally and summed to producea single separates and identifies signals by SAT frequency
wideband slgnal thatis then convertedback to an so that the beamformcr response has gain in the
analog format using a high-speed D/A converter. directions of desired signal components and nulls
An R F block upconverter completes the process in thc dircctions of interfering components.
by translating thc wideband IF back to the original This architecture also uses newly developed
cellular RF band. techniques to implement “software transmis-
The signal processing algorithms providea sion.” Once the spatial filtering has been accom-
fully adaptive receive beam anda switchcd trans- plished, the signal is reconstituted digitally and
mit beam with four azimuthal beams per 120 converted with high fidelity to R F so that the
degree sector. The net apcrture gain is in excess beamformed signals can be “received” by a stan-
of 20 dBi. The adaptive receive beamsare created dard base station through the omnior sector
by a specialircd variantof the constant modulus antenna port.
algorithm (CMA) [I, 6, 71 which execntes in soft- In current cellular systems with omnidirec-
ware and maximizes CII through a combination tional or sectored antennas, interfcrcncc limits
of spatial beam steering, interfcrcr null steering. the choice of frequencies in each cell to one out
and maximal ratio combiningol multipath. of every seven. Preliminary analyscs indicatethat
The beamformcr software stores the incoming software-radio-based “Smart Antenna” appliques
signals in random access memory (RAM) while can enhance thcC,fl in both the forward and reverse
the bcam steering coefficients are being calculated. link to allow Irequency reuse of 3 to 1. Use of this

IEEE Communications Magazine May 1995 67

-
In the filture,
type of a smart array represents a greater than
to 1 increase in capacity and supports a 3 to 1
2
increase in call arrival ratc for the same probabil-
ity of blocked calls.
software
Summary
radios will oftware radio architectures, originally devel-
be the
S oped for military applicalions, are
now becom-
ing economically viable in commercial products
because of the rapid advance of DSP technology.
technology of The advantages of digital techniques over con-
ventional analog approachcs arcmuch the same
as those of CD audio over the now-obsoletevinyl
choice in an LP technology: higher dynamic range and better
fidelity. As the demand for radio spectrum grows,
expanding the ability of sophisticated DSP algorithms to
combat multipath fading andto rcduce interfer-
away of ence will become increasingly valuableas a means
of adding capacityto cellular and PCS systems.
In the future, software radioswill be the tech-
mobile radio nology of choice in an expanding arrayof mobile
radio applications.
applications. References
[lID N Godard."Self-recovenngequalizatlonandcarrlertrackingintwo-
dimens~onaldatacommun~cat~onsystems."lEEETrans.onCommun..
fax. Virglnia HIS emall address IS sullivan8era com.
~~
68
V I . COM -28,no 11. Nov 1980.pp 1867-1875
[21E B Hoyenauer, "An economtcal class of digltal fllters for decima-
tlon and Interpolation," lEEE Trans. on Acoustics, Speech, and Sig
naI Processmg. "01. ASP-29. no. 2. Aprll 1981,pp 155-162.
131 W. C. Y. Lee. Mobile Cellular Telecommunlratlonr. 2nd Ed., (New
York McGraw-Hill, 1995)
[dl 5. K. Oh and C. K. Un, "Simple computatlonal methods of the AP
alqorlthm for maximum lhkelihood locallzatlon of multlole radlat
Iny sources." IEEE Trans. on Srgnal Process,ng. vol. 40. no 1 1 ,
Nov. 1992, pp. 2848-2854
[51J 0 Smlth and J. S Abel, "Closed-form least-squares source l o c a ~
tlon estlmation from ranoe-dlfference measurements." IEEE Trans.
onacoustics. Speech, and5gnaI Processing. vol. ASP-35. no. 12,
Dec. 1987.pp 1661-1669
[61 B I Sublett. R P Gooch, and 5. H. Goldberq, "Separatlon and
bearing estimation of co-channel signals," Proceedings of the
1989 IEEE Milttaty Communlcations Conference, Oct. 1989.
[ I : I. Zlsklnd and M. Wax, "Maxlmum Ilkellhood locallzatlon of multb
ple sources by alternatlng projection." IEEE Trans on Acou5tiq
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oct. 1988.
Biographies
JOSPEH KENNEDY15 the dmctor of the Advanced Comrnunlcatlonr Systems
group at Englneerlng Research Airsocldter, Vlenna. Virglnla, where he
I S currently responsible for the development of smart antenna and
geOlocatlon technology for government and commerclal markets. He
recewed an M.E.A. from Vlrgbnla Polytechnlc Instutlte. and M.5 and
B.5. degrees ~nelectrical engmeerlng from the George W a h n y t o n
Unlverslty and the Univemlty of Vnrglnla, respectively
MARK C. SULLIVAN IM '851 is a sclentlst at Englneerlng Research ASSOCI~
ates. Vlenna. Vlrglnla. where h e ~ currentlydeveloping
s
beamformers for commercial applications.
adaptive
He received a Ph D tn
informat~ontechnologyin1994,anM.S.~nstat~st~calrc~ence~n1991,and
aEIS.lnsignalprocesslngin1989,fromGeorgeMasonUn~verslty~nFalr
Magarme IEEE Cornn~unicat~ons May 1995