ELECTRONIC DIGITAL BEAMFORMING IMPLEMENTATION FOR

RADARS
R. NEY, S. BONAIMÉ, F. DOLON , J.J. BERTHELIER,
CETP/IPSL, 4 Avenue de Neptune, 94107 Saint-Maur Cedex, France
richard.ney@cetp.ipsl.fr

R. CLAIRQUIN, D. NEVEJANS
BIRA/IASB, Ringlaan 3, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium

C. DUVANAUD
LAII, Université de Poitiers, IUT, 4 Avenue de Varsovie, 16021 Angoulême Cedex, France

A. D’HERMIES
ESIEE, Cité Descartes, BP 99, 2 Bld Blaise Pascal, 93162 Noisy-le-Grand Cedex, France

Introduction.
Beamformers are complex networks used to precisely control the phase and amplitude of RF
signals passing through them. They are used either in the transmission or the receiving mode
and even in both modes. In RF transmitting systems for radars, beamformers are employed
between the RF signal source and the radiating elements to shape the beam illuminating the
target to be detected. In receiving systems beamformers are employed between the antenna
arrays and the receiver to observe a specific region of space.
Beamformers can be implemented either with analog or digital components. Figure 1
illustrates the analog beamforming concept implemented on the Iceland and Kerguelen islands
radars of the SuperDarn network. The beamforming elements are inside the Phasing Matrix
box. Each antenna is associated to a power amplifier. Beamforming is performed in both
transmitting and receiving mode.

16 channels

PHASING MATRIX

To Receiver From RF pulse generator

Figure 1: Analog beamforming on the Super DARN (Dual Auroral Radar Network)
radars. Operating frequency band: 8-20 MHz, Frequency Agility capability
Digital beamforming.
The classical papers of Barton (1980) and Steyskal (1987) on digital beamforming describe
the complete capabilities of the concept. It was emphasized in the 80’s that the cost of the
whole digital system was beyond the financial capabilities of Research Institutes. The
permanent decrease of the cost of digital components in one hand and in the other hand the
increase of their performances allow now to many users access to full Digital Beamforming.

j(wt-kr)
E=A(t)

0 1 N N+1
Vn

Down Converter Receiver

VIN VQN
Analog
ADC ADC
ADC Digital
YIN Y’QN
Complex Digital
Comple Digital
x Weight
Weight WN

XIN=YIN.WN X’QN=Y’QN.WN

Digital Summation
∑ XIN , ∑ X’QN

Figure 2 (from Steyskal, 1987) : receiving digital

Figure 2 (from Steyskal, 1987) shows a proposed architecture for a digital implementation in
the receiving mode. Each antenna is associated with a complete receiver. After demodulation
and analog to digital conversion the time series I and Q go through the unit where
beamformer weights are applied. Finally all the signals from all the antennas are summed up.

The GPR of the NetLander mission.

A complete GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) unit has been developed at CETP for the
NetLander space mission devoted to the geophysical exploration of Mars (Ney et al 2002,
Berthelier et al 2003). The goal of the radar is twofold: subsurface sounding for mainly water
detection and ionospheric sounding for measurement of the ionospheric critical frequency
thought to be around 3 MHz during the day and 0.5 MHz during night. The main constraint
was the limited available 500g mass for the whole radar including antennas. This led to the
development of a very compact unit integrated on two 15x13 cm boards.
The main element of the unit (figure 3) is a FPGA programmed in VHDL language which
performs the digital wave generation through a DDS scheme, the full control of the radar
operation and interface with a PC and the coherent integrations (up to 224) of 2500 range gates
signals. The frequency range is 0.2 to 5 MHz and the output peak power is 10W. The receiver
is a standard analog unit. For the field tests, the ON/OFF, the data transfer, the control
parameters of the radar, are achieved through a wireless link between the PC and the radar.
The data transfer is done according to a MIL STD 1553-like protocol.

A digital beamforming implementation.

Figure 4 illustrates the concept.
Each antenna of an antenna network has to be associated to an electronic unit. This
architecture is very flexible and allows Digital Beamforming for both transmission and
reception, or if desired for reception only.
This hardware can be applied to many radars in the HF and VHF bands. The analog receiver
can be replaced by a digital receiver which implements the ADC at the HF or VHF level,
digital demodulation and matched filtering on the I and Q baseband signals.

Conclusions.
The radar unit developed at CETP allows:
• Digital beamforming in the receiving and transmitting modes.
• A great number of range gates, a great flexibility (frequency generation, ability to
oversampling, large range values for parameters…).
• The VHDL program can be implemented in any FPGA.
• Practical user interface.
• Medium cost.
• Extension to VHF frequency range, to higher transmitted power.
• Use of digital receiver (better performances and flexibility).
These features are likely to promote the use of digital beamforming at MF, HF, VHF
frequencies in several fields such as ionospheric radars, ST radars, oceanographic radars…

References.
Barton, P., (1980). Digital beam forming for radar. IEE Proceedings, Vol. 127, Pt. F, N°4,
August, pp. 266-277.
Berthelier,J.J., R. Ney, V. Ciarletti, A. Reineix, B. Martinat, M. Hamelin, F. Costard, W.
Kofman, P. Paillou, C. Duvanaud, D. Nevejans, W. Kofman, J.G. Trotignon, G. Grandjean,
M. Zamora and A. Nagy (2003). GPR, A Ground Penetrating Radar for the NetLander
mission. J. Geophys. Res., 108, ( E4), 8027.
Ney, R, J.J. Berthelier, V. Ciarletti, B. Martinat, M. Hamelin, M. Rodriguez-Cassola, F.
Dolon, S. Bonaimé, A. Reineix, D. Nevejans, C. Duvanaud, F. Costard, and P. Paillou
(2002). The Ground Penetrating Radar of the Netlander Misssion. Proceedings of the Ninth
International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar, University of California, Santa
Barbara, USA, Apil 29 – May 2, pp. 541-5 46.
Steyskal, H. (1987). Digital Beamforming Antennas. Microwave Journal, January 1987, pp.
107-124.
 DDS
Frequency Range : 0-25MHz Power
DAC
Pulse Modulation Amplifier
CW, Bi-phase, BPSK

F0

0
FPGA
π/ 2 Receiver
Radar Control
Demodulation at Fo

ADC ADC
Coherent Integration s

Acess-point PCMCIA
Wireless 802.11b

Figure 3 : The NetLander GPR radar architecture

RADAR-1

Wireless RADAR-2
802.11b

RADAR-N

Figure 4: Example of a digital beamforming radar architecture