Six-Port Interferometer for Direction-of-Arrival
Detection System*
Siti Zuraidah Ibrahim1, Mohammad Shahrazel
Razalli2, Wee Fwen Hoon2
1
Advanced Communication Engineering Centre
2
School of Computer and Communication Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Perlis,
Arau, Perlis, Malaysia
sitizuraidah@unimap.edu.my, shahrazel@unimap.edu.my,
fhwee@unimap.edu.my
Abstract— Phase measurement DOA detection is commonly
used nowadays. However, the traditional approach are based on
conventional mixer architecture or expensive direct conversion
devices which has high complexity and costly while comprising
robustness. Therefore a new interferometer DOA detection
system based on six-port network has been lately investigated
and is showing several advantages in respect to traditional
solutions. The phase measurement using a six-port
interferometer for Direction-of-Arrival (DOA) Detection for
Ultrawideband (UWB) application is presented. The presented
six-port interferometer is formed by Wilkinson power divider
(WPD) and planar 3dB/90° hybrid couplers. The WPD and
hybrid couplers are fabricated and the S-parameter
performances are measured using Network Analyzer. The
measured results of WPD and hybrid coupler are then modelled
as six-port interferometer in the Keysight Advanced Design
System (ADS) simulation software. The six-port interferometer is
modelled by combining measured scattering parameters of the all
ports of six-port network. The constructed scattering matrix is
transform into touchstone file format. The DOA system
comprises of Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs), six-port
interferometer, power detectors and Operating amplifiers (Op-
Amps). Its performance is assessed via schematic simulation
ADS. The simulated results show the presented six-port
interferometer is able to discriminate the detected wave phase of
the signal.
Keywords—Six-port network, Interferometer; Schottky diode;
Ultrawideband radar
I. INTRODUCTION
Phase measurement DOA detection is commonly used
nowadays. However, the traditional approach are based on
conventional mixer architecture or expensive direct conversion
devices which has high complexity and costly while
comprising robustness. Therefore a new interferometer DOA
detection system based on six-port network has been lately
investigated and is showing several advantages in respect to
traditional solutions [1]. Six-port network has advantages in
terms of low complexity, high bandwidth, and easy
implementation for frequencies at which common receiver
architectures based on active mixers get hard to design [2].
This work is sponsored by Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia
(MoHE) in the form of a research grant FRGS-9003-00555.
978-1-5090-0793-6/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Mohd Nazri A. Karim
School of Electrical System Engineering
Universiti Malaysia Perlis
Arau, Perlis, Malaysia
nazrikarim@gmail.com
The six-port concept has been known for phase
measurement applications since the 1960’s [2]. Six-port
measurements are based on the phase shift superposition of the
incident and reflected waves at a port of a device under test
which is attached to the six-port network, with different
relative phase shifts resulting in different signal powers at the
output ports of the six-port structure [2]. The power is
measured by power detector placed at the output ports.
There are several examples showing application of the six-
port interferometer [1], [3]–[7]. Since the six-port network is a
linear passive network, it can be easily designed at frequencies
from Ultra-Wideband Frequency (UWB) [2], [8] to millimeter
waves [1], [6]. In [2], the performance of six-port is evaluated
as an analog front end receiver working in low microwave
frequency spectrum from 1 GHz to 3 GHz. Its system
simulations with an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
signal show the suitability of the design for six-port
communications receivers. In turn, the performance of six-port
interferometer for DOA detection within millimeter wave
spectrum in [1], [6] shows very high angular resolution. In this
paper, a six-port interferometer operating within UWB
spectrum is presented here as the DOA detection. The
operation of six-port DOA detection is assessed between 5 to 8
GHz. The six-port interferometer is composed by a WPD and
3dB/90° hybrid couplers. The measured S-parameters of both
components; WPD and couplers are modelled in ADS to form
the six-port interferometer.
II. PRINCIPLES OF SIX-PORT INTERFEROMETER
The six-port based interferometer concept is illustrated in
Fig. 1. As depicted in Fig. 1, two antennas are needed for the
DOA estimation. They are connected to the two input ports of
the six-port receiver, RF1 and RF2. The two received signals
interfere with each other in the six-port network generates four
phase-shifted superposition at the six-port outputs, P3, P4, P5
and P6. They are subsequently down-converted to baseband,
B3, B4, B5 and B6 by RF power detectors.
 Legend:
RF power detector

Wave front
Δϕ

(a) (b)
α
Fig. 2. The fabricated prototypes (a) WPD (b)3dB/90° coupler
L

Fig. 3 shows the measured results of WPD. The measured

P4 B4
- performances of WPD feature flat power division of -3±1dB
I
Six-port Interferometer
4
3dB/90°
3
P3 B3
+ over the investigated frequency band from 5 to 11 GHz. The
return loss and isolation are better than 10 dB across the same
WPD 3dB/90° 2
frequency band.
RF1 1 RF2
LNA LNA
3dB/90°
50Ω

P6
5 6
B6
- Q
P5 B5 +
Fig. 1: The block diagram of a six-port interferometer DOA detection.

The relationship between the incident angle, α and the

detected DOA angle from the baseband signals B3, B4, B5
and B6 of the six-port receiver, through the phase difference Fig. 3. Measured S-parameters results of WPD prototype.
Δϕ is therefore given by [9]:
Fig. 4 shows the measured results of 3dB/90° coupler. The
  B  B4    measured coupling coefficient is -3±1dB across 5.5 to 7.5
  sin 1 tan 1  3  (1)

  B5  B6  2L  GHz. The return loss and isolation are better than 10 dB across
the similar frequency band.
Where λ is the wavelength of the signal and L is the distance
between the two receiving antennas. The detected phase Δϕ
can be expressed as [9]:
 B  B4 
  tan 1  3  (2)
 B5  B6 
III. SIX-PORT DOA SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
As depicted in Fig. 1, the DOA detection system consists of
four components which are passive six-port interferometer, two
low noise amplifiers, four RF power detectors and two Fig. 4. Measured S-parameters results of 3dB/90° coupler prototype.
operational amplifiers. The six-port DOA detection system is
modelled and simulated using ADS software. The obtained measured data are then compiled using
MATLAB code to produce .s3p file for WPD and .s4p file
A. Construction of Six-port Interferometer coupler. Both files are required for modelling the six-port
network in Agilent-ADS simulation software.
The six-port interferometer model that highlighted by blue
color in Fig. 1 consists of one Wilkinson power divider and B. RF Power Detector
three quadrature 3dB/90° hybrid couplers. In this paper, both The diode power detector is modelled as depicted in
components are designed at center frequency of 6.5 GHz. The
Fig. 5.
WPD is designed using well established guidelines found in the
microwave literatures [10], [11] while the design of 3dB/90°
coupler is adopted from [12]. The prototypes of both
components are fabricated as shown in Fig. 2. The S-
parameters measurements of both prototypes are performed
using vector network analyzer (VNA) Agilent-EB326B. The
WPD and coupler are experimentally tested across the
frequency band of 5 GHz to 11 GHz, and 5 GHz to 8 GHz,
respectively.
Fig. 5. Diode power detector circuit used in the simulation.
 Schottky diode, also known as hot carrier diode, is the transmission coefficients from Port 1 to Ports 3, 4, 5 and 6 are
most common device used for low drop voltage and for the -7 dB ±1 dB across the same frequency range. The isolation
quadratic relation between voltage and current. The zero-bias between Port 1 and Port 2 is better than 13 dB with increased
Schottky diode Agilent HSMS-2865 is assumed in this bandwidth over 5 GHz to 8 GHz. When assumed Port 2 as the
simulation owing to its low cost, high volume and high input port, the return loss at Port 2 is greater than 10 dB across
frequency detector characteristics. The detector rectifies RF the range of 5.4 GHz to 8 GHz. Also, the transmission
input signal, converts to baseband signal at the output by using coefficients from Port 2 to Ports 3, 4, 5 and 6 are -7 dB ±2 dB
transfer function of a nonlinear device. The nonlinear voltage- over the frequency range of 5.6 to 8 GHz.
current transfer function enables a power-to-current Fig. 6(c) shows the performances of the six-port
conversion that is needed for the power detection process. interferometer in terms of phase differences between output
ports. For the ideal case, the phase differences should be
C. DOA System Simulation Setup
integer multiples of 90°. Theoretically, the phase difference
A complete six-port interferometer DOA detection should be 90° when referring to Port 1 and -90° when
architecture as shown in Fig. 1 is simulated using ADS referring to Port 2 as the input port. The simulated results
simulation software. The two antennas which represent as the show an almost constant phase shift over the investigated
RF-inputs are set at -10dBm input power to the six-port frequency band of 5–8 GHz. The phase shifts are close to the
interferometer DOA detector. The operating frequency is set at specific required values, ±90° in the band from 5–8 GHz. In
center which is 6.5 GHz. Two RF inputs are distinguished by terms of magnitudes and phases, these results have shown that
90° phase differences. Assuming a very low incoming signal the six-port interferometer features good performances across
power, a proper Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA) stage is required 5 GHz to 8 GHz and suitable for the DOA detection system.
to guarantee an overall good dynamic range of the DOA
detection system. Therefore, both RF input signals are initially
amplified by LNA which is chosen from RF Agilent-ADS
library. The output from the LNAs are fed into six-port
interferometer for generation of phased-shifted superposition
signal at its output ports, noted as P3, P4, P5 and P6. These
signals are still in high frequency form. They are subsequently
down-converted to baseband signal by RF power detectors,
which are noted as B3, B4, B5 and B6.
The four outputs, B3, B4, B5, and B6 from the RF diode
detectors are then fed into the Op-Amps. The Op-Amps are
functioning as a comparator to generate the phase difference (a)
between the outputs of B3 and B4, and B5 and B6. The Op-
Amp amplifies the difference in voltage between the two
inputs; each input influences the output voltage in opposite
ways. An Op-Amp with no feedback is already a differential
amplifier, amplifying the voltage difference between the two
inputs. Ideal Op-Amp is assumed in the simulation software.
As depicted in Fig. 1, the system is extremely sensitive to
phase variations. Angle detection can be calculated by
applying equation (1) and (2) that has been discussed in
Section II.
(b)
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, the simulated S-parameters of the six-port
interferometer and the output of the DOA detection system are
discussed.

A. Six-port S-parameters results

Fig. 6 shows the simulated S-parameter performance of the
six-port network model of Fig. 1. Fig. 6(a) shows the
performance of the six-port interferometer model when Port 1
is assumed as the input port while Fig. 6(b) shows its (c)
performance when Port 2 is assumed as the input port.
According to Fig. 6(a), the return loss at Port 1 is greater than Fig. 6 Simulated S-parameters of the six-port network model in ADS (a)
Magnitude (input port1) (b) Magnitude (input port2) (c) Phase differences
10 dB across the band of 5.5 GHz to 7.8 GHz. The between output ports
B. DOA Detection Results
DOA detection by six-port interferometer is based on the
high-phase resolution of the RF front end receiver. Six-port
interferometer should be able to distinguish the In-phase (I)
and quadrature signal (Q) of the received signal. This is one
particular feature of the six-port interferometer concept.
The performances of the six-port interferometer as DOA
detection can be evaluated through the converted baseband
signal by the RF power detectors. Fig. 7 shows the four
converted baseband signals, noted as B3, B4, B5 and B6 in
Fig. 1.
Fig. 7. Output waveforms by RF power detectors.
These baseband results are generated based on the
simulation of the six-port interferometer DOA detection
complete diagram shown in Fig. 1. It is simulated using
envelope simulation at centre frequency of 6.5 GHz. The
simulation period is set to 100 ns with a time step of 10ns. For
observation, the results of the baseband signals are evaluated
within the first 260 ps. This window period is good enough for
showing one cycle of each baseband signal. As can be seen in
Fig. 7, each baseband signal is differ by a certain phase shift.
These results show that the six-port interferometer is able to
produce four phase-shifted superposition signals between two
input signals. These results are important for substitution in
equation (1) and (2) to get the differential phase shift, Δϕ.
The simulated output waveforms, as plotted in Fig. 8
confirm the operating principle of the six-port interferometer
as DOA detection. Fig. 8 shows the results of two differential
signal pairs in baseband within the first 350 ps. Similar to Fig.
7, this window period is good enough to observe the response
of the differential pairs for one cyle. As seen in Fig. 8, the
differential signal of B3/B4 and B5/B6 are differs by a certain
phase shift. This phase shift can be calculated using equation
(1) and (2) written in Section II. This makes the six-port
interferometer more robust against non-idealities due to the
benefit of a differential signal representation.
Fig. 8. Output waveforms by Op-Amps.
V. CONCLUSION
Six-port interferometer has been chosen for this paper for
direction of arrival detection because of its advantages as low
power consumption, low manufacturing cost, simplicity and
good performance in high frequency and wideband
application. The prototypes of six-port components, WPD and
3dB/90° hybrid coupler have been fabricated and measured.
The measured data have been modelled in Agilent-ADS for
construction of six-port interferometer model. Simulation of
subcomponents such as LNA, six-port interferometer, RF
power detectors, and Op-Amps have been carried out. An
overall evaluation of the six-port direction-of-arrival detection
demonstrates a high precision in its phase different
measurement.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Mr. Mohd Fardzereen Bin
Abu Hasan Saari and Ms. Rosnida Binti Rashid for their
contribution in designing, fabricating and performing S-
parameters measurement for the porotypes of WPD and
3dB/90° hybrid coupler.
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