Implementation and Performance Evaluation of TMSC6711 DSP-based Digital Beamformer

This paper discusses the implementation and performance evaluation of a DSP-based digital beamformer using the Texas Instrument TMSC6711 DSP processor for smart antenna applications. Two adaptive beamforming algorithms which served as the brain for the beamformer, the Normalized Least-Mean-Square (NLMS) and the Constant Modulus Algorithms (CMA) were embedded into the processor and evaluated. Result shows that the NLMS-based digital beamformer outperforms the CMA-based digital beamformer: 1)For NLMS algorithm, the antenna steers to the direction of the desired user even at low iteration value and the suppression level towards the interferer increases as the number of iteration increase. For CMA algorithm, the beam radiation pattern slowly steers to the desired user as the number of iteration increased, but at arate slower than NLMS algorithm and the sidelobe level is shown to increases as the number of iteration increase. 2) The NLMS algorithm has faster convergence than CMA algorithm and the error convergence for CMA algorithm sometimes is subject to misadjustment.