ABSTRACT
Digital beamforming has many of the advantages that a digital computational environment has over its analog counterpart. In most cases, less power is needed to perform the beam steering of the phased array (PA) antenna. Another advantage is the reduction of variations associated with time, temperature, and other environmental changes found in analog devices. Digital beamformers can accomplish minimization of side lobe levels, interference canceling, and multiple beam operation without changing the physical architecture of the PA antenna. The received radio frequency analog signal at each antenna element is converted to digital form using high-speed multibyte parallel analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). This chapter will focus on the main components involved in the implementation of digital beamforming, such as ADCs, digital down converters, and so on.
