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2008 IEEE INTERNATIONAL RF AND MICROWAVE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS December 2-4, 2008, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA 2-

08

Switched Beam Antenna System Design

Mohamad Kamal Abdul Rahim, Mohd Nazif Mat Salleh, Osman Ayop, Thelaha Masri
Radio Communication Engineering Department (RaCED), Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia. mkamal@fke.utm.my, nazri1601@yahoo.com, ithelaha@yahoo.com.my, osman@fke.utm.my

Abstract - This paper described the design and implementation of switch beam antenna array system operating at 2.4 GHz frequency band. In this paper, four beam patterns are generated by incorporated with four dielectric antenna array and butler matrix. The PIN diode worked as a swicth while the PIC microcontroller used to control the beam pattern by setting the time delay between the beams. The result showed that the multibeam radiation pattern can be produced using this system.

1.

Introduction

Smart antennas technology offers a significantly improved solution to reduce interference levels and improve the system capacity. With this technology, each users signal is transmitted and received by the base station only in the direction of that particular user. This drastically reduces the overall interference in the system. A smart antennas system consists of an array of antennas that direct different transmission/reception beams toward each user in the system. This method of transmission and reception is called beamforming and is made possible through advanced digital signal processing at the baseband. In beamforming, each users signal is multiplied with complex algorithms that adjust the magnitude and phase of the signal to and from each antenna. This causes the output from the array of antennas to form a transmit/receive beam in the desired direction and minimizes the output in other directions. Multiple access wireless communications is being deployed for both fixed and mobile application. In fixed application, the wireless network provides voice and data for fixed subscribers. Mobile networks offering voice and data services can be divided into two classes: high mobility, to serve high speed vehicle-

borne user, and low mobility, to serve pedestrian user. Wireless system designer are facing with a number of challenges [1]. In indoor wireless communication environments, however, reflections from walls, the floor, or the ceiling cause many signal propagation paths and delays consequently degrading the received signal quality and receiver performance. One of possible solutions is by using the switch beam antenna technique. The antenna's direction main beam will be focused towards the user while nulls towards interference signal or multipath signal directions. The incoming signals from reflection paths are suppressed while increasing the antenna gain for a desired signal direction. Thus, a transmitting power requirement can be also reduced [2]. Multibeam antennas are antenna array that make use of beam forming network to produce multiple independent beams that directed to different directions. By offering independent beams or channels, access point will switch between these channels to select the channel that has the highest received power. This feature assist the antenna system to maximize the power received in the desired directions. Figure 1 illustrates the idea of having four beams coverage pattern produced by multibeam antenna.

Figure 1: Four beams coverage pattern produced by multibeam antenna

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2.

Design Considerations

In this work, the design has been divided into two stages. The first stage is the antenna and beamforming network design. The beam forming network has been designed using butler matrix technique while the antenna designed is using linear array dielectric resonator antenna. The second stage of this work is to design the switches and to program the PIC microcontroller to switch the beam. The PIN diode worked as a switch when a certain voltage is applied to the device. The beam is switching from one beam to another beam using the time delay of the circuit. The prototypes are designed at 2.4 GHz, implemented by using microstrip transmission line technique and fabricated on FR4 board with dielectric constant (r) of 4.5, thickness (h) of 1.6 mm and dissipation factor (tan ) of 0.019. All simulations of antenna design are done using Method of Moments (MoM) in Microwave Office software. The RF switches consist of microstrip power divider with PIN diodes. The design of 4 way power divider is shown in Figure 1.The circuit is operating at frequency of 2.4 GHz. The quarterwave transformer has been used to match the transmission line of the microstrip design. The impedance of quarterwave transformer can be written as [3]

to block or pass the RF signal while the capacitor is being used to block the DC current entering in RF equipment. The PIN diode has been tested by injecting +3 volts to the input and the resistor will limit the current across the PIN diode.

Figure 1:The Equivalent Forward Bias PIN diode Circuit

The PIC controls the PIN diodes to switch the RF to the butler matrix. Each switch can be on one time only. Therefore, the software needs to develop a program to the microcontroller. PIC16F84A has been chosen as a controller in this project because it is simple and suitable for basic programming. The flow of the program that has been developed for this project is shown in Figure 2. The source code for the software has been written in assembly language.

Z q = Z1 Z 2

(1)
Start

where Z1and Z2 are the two impedances being matched. A quarter wave transformers provide a perfect match (ZERO reflection) at the frequency 2.4 GHz where the length of the transformer is /4 can be shown as

S1 high for T second

(c / f ) = = reff reff
where

(2)

S2 high for T second

reff

is the effective dielectric constant can be

S3 high for T second

calculated

reff =
reff

r+1
2

r 1
2 1 + 12h / w

S4 high for T second

(3)
End

is the effective dielectric constant that does a sort

Figure 2: The flow of the programming

Figure 1 shows the forward bias circuit of the PIN diode. In this circuit the PIN diode will act as a switch,

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Figure 3 shows the actual picture of dielectric resonator antenna. The antenna has been arranged so that the distance between the elements is nearly half wave length. The operating frequency of this antenna is 2.4 GHz.

Figure 5 : Forward Transmission Coefficient

Figure 3 : Linear array of dielectric resonator antenna

3.

Results and Discussions

Figure 6 shows the return loss measurement of the dielectric resonator antenna. The result shows that the operating frequency of the antenna is between 2.4 and 2.5 GHz. The return loss is measured at each port of the antenna
Dielectric Antenna S11 Mesurement
0 -10 dB -20 -30 -40 -50 Frequency (GHz) 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Port1 Port 2 Port 3 Port 4

Figure 4 shows the simulation result of return loss for power divider. The design was simulated at frequency within 2.4 to 2.5 GHz. The return loss for the RF power divider is below -10 dB for frequency range between 2.4 and 2.5 GHz

Figure 6 Return Loss for DRA

Figure 4: Return Loss Result of power divider

The power divider was designed to produce four outputs, and each output should equally split the input power. By calculation, 10 log (1/4) = -6 dB, each port has -6B forward transmission coefficient. From the simulation result shown in Figure 5, the forward transmission coefficient for each port is almost -6dB. This design is still accepted since the power was equally split for two ports.

The PIN diode was tested by injecting 3V to the input as shown in Figure 7. The current across the PIN diode is approximately 30A. The measurement of RF circuit (power divider with PIN diodes) is done by injecting the RF signal from signal generator to the input of power divider. The output port is directly connected to the spectrum analyzer. The spectrum analyzer measured the power signal when the switch is ON or OFF. The power has been changed approximately -7dB. To test the microcontroller programming, the LEDs were connected at each outputs port to observe whether the microcontroller switch the port or not. When start the program, the port 1 is in ON state for T second. After the T second the port 1 is OFF state and the port 2 is ON for T second again. This goes on until port 4

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and start to port 1 again. The program will be repeated until the microcontroller is reset. The overall system of the switch beam antenna is shown in Figure 7. The radiation pattern of the system is being measured in an anechoic chamber. The radiation pattern of the system is shown in figure 8. It shows that the beam pattern of the antenna has been shifted about 10o -15o.
PIC Microcontroller Circuit

antenna beam has been shifted according to the microcontroller switches.The beam of the antenna is being shifted around 10 -15o. For the control system, the PIC16F84A was selected. This microcontroller was programmed to control the time delay for the system.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thanks the Research Management Centre (RMC) and Department of Radio Communication Engineering (RaCED), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for supporting this research work.

RF Input

RF circuit (Microstrip Power Divider with PIN diode)

Beamforming Network (Butler Matrix)

Dielectric Antenna

References
[1] Figure 7 The block diagram of switch beam antenna system
[2] Introduction to space-time wireless communication, Arogyaswami Stanford University, Rohit Nabar ETH, Zurich, Dhananjay Gore Stanford University 2003. Seong-sik Jeon, Ji-Yong Park, Yuanxun Wang, Tatsuo Itoh, A Broadband beamforming for Millimeter-wace System using Sub-band Sampling"Dept. of Electr. Eng., California Univ., Los Angeles, CA, USA, 579- 582 vol.1, June 2003. Constantine A. Balanis, Antenna Theory 3rd, John Wiley and Sons, 2005 L.J. Ricardi, Multiple beam antennas, The Handbook of Antenna Design, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, 1982 David M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering 3rd, John Wiley and Sons, 2005 Michael Chryssomallis, Smart Antennas, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 42, No. 3, June 2000 F.E Fakoukakis, S. G. Diamantis, A. P.Orfanides, G. A. Kyriacou, Development of an Adaptive and a Switched Beam Smart Antenna System for Wireless Communications, Democritus University of Thrace, 1999

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[3]

[4]
60

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[5] [6] [7]

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-80 -55 -60 -65 -70 -75 -75 -70 240 -65 -60 -55
180

-80

-75

-70

-65

-60

-55

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Figure 8 : Radiation Pattern in all direction

4.

Conclusion

The switched beam antenna system were able to switch the beam automatically based on time delay of the microcontroller. This work is being done by combining the antenna, butler matrux, switches and microcontroller. The radiation pattern shows that the

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