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Abstract

This paper presents a modularized simulation software package for adaptive beamforming. In recent years, the theory and technology of adaptive beamforming have been applied extensively in many different areas such as radar, sonar, communication systems, and geophysical exploration. As many new beamforming architectures and related algorithms are being introduced, researchers find themselves repeating the laborious process of writing similar software routines in order to conduct simulations. This is largely due to the lack of well-defined and modularized supporting software. Therefore, we have implemented a collection of representative algorithms available for adaptive beamforming and constructed a simulator with menu-driven user interface. The algorithms include generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC), Frost, derivative constraints, high order main beam derivative constraints (HOMBDC), least mean square (LMS), leaky LMS, recursive least square (RLS), and variable step size LMS. Our goal is to provide a powerful and convenient simulation platform for researehers who want to quickly establish and evaluate some beamforming model of their choice. For students learning the theory of adaptive beamforming, this package will not only help them understand the principles, but also encourage them to apply the theory to the solution of practical problems. For the highest portability possible, the software package is written entirely in C language. The user interface is completely independent of the simulation engine. This, of course, will ease the porting of the package to other graphical environment.

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