Skip to main content

What are the main lobe and side lobes in Beamforming

 

 What are the main lobe and side lobes in Beamforming?

You've probably noticed that in the diagram of beamforming, there are two types of lobes in beamforming patterns. One is the main lobe, while the others are side lobes. We intend to communicate with receivers with a stronger directional path from the transmitter when we produce beams for wireless communication. We can also see side lobes in this scenario. These side lobes, on the other hand, are not necessary for effective communication. As a result, we take various procedures to remove those side lobes or to reduce the number of side lobes as much as feasible; otherwise, inter-symbol interference occurs, and signal quality suffers.

Figure: Illustration of Main Lobe and Side lobes, where the x-axis denotes the angle of arrival (AOA) and angle of departure (AOD), respectively, while, the y-axis denotes the gain/power in dB (decibel).
   

In the case of MIMO antennas, our major goal is to reduce inter-symbol interface (ISI) by minimizing the number of side lobes, therefore we deploy antenna elements at half-wavelength intervals. It's a common practice to increase the power of the main lobe while reducing the power of the side lobes.


How to plot Main Lobes and Side lobes

The plotting of the main lobe and side lobes is not difficult. To begin, measure the received power at the receiver for a specific angle of arrival or departure (AOA/AOD).

For Example

At 28 GHz, UMi - LOS, 372-meter TX-RX Separation, Transmitted Power 30 dBm


The received power changes with parameters like the angle of arrival at the receiver, as seen in the example above.



We've plotted the graph of received power against the angle of arrival of the received signal in the diagram above. These are termed side lobes.

What causes the lobes to form?

Assume we have multiple transmitting antennas. Now, we gradually shift the phases of the antennas (using phase shifters (PSs) or manually), and the signal focuses on the resulting phase angles of those antennas.

# mimo beamforming
 

Further Reading

  1.  How Windowing Affects Your Periodogram (Mainlobe Power & Sidelobe Power)
  2. Why Half-Power (−3 dB) Is Used 

People are good at skipping over material they already know!

View Related Topics to







Contact Us

Name

Email *

Message *

Popular Posts

Shannon Limit Explained: Negative SNR, Eb/No and Channel Capacity

Understanding Negative SNR and the Shannon Limit Understanding Negative SNR and the Shannon Limit An explanation of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), its behavior in decibels, and how Shannon's theorem defines the ultimate communication limit. Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Shannon’s Equation In Shannon's equation, the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is defined as the signal power divided by the noise power: SNR = S / N Since both signal power and noise power are physical quantities, neither can be negative. Therefore, the SNR itself is always a positive number. However, engineers often express SNR in decibels: SNR(dB) When SNR = 1, the logarithmic value becomes: SNR(dB) = 0 When the noise power exceeds the signal power (SNR < 1), the decibel representation becomes negative. Behavior of Shannon's Capacity Equation Shannon’s channel capacity formula is: C = B log₂(1 + SNR) For SNR = 0: log₂(1 + SNR) = 0 When SNR becomes smaller (in...
Read more

Amplitude, Frequency, and Phase Modulation Techniques (AM, FM, and PM)

📘 Overview 🧮 Amplitude Modulation (AM) 🧮 Online Amplitude Modulation Simulator 🧮 MATLAB Code for AM 🧮 Q & A and Summary 📚 Further Reading Amplitude Modulation (AM): The carrier signal's amplitude varies linearly with the amplitude of the message signal. An AM wave may thus be described, in the most general form, as a function of time as follows .                       When performing amplitude modulation (AM) with a carrier frequency of 100 Hz and a message frequency of 10 Hz, the resulting peak frequencies are as follows: 90 Hz (100 - 10 Hz), 100 Hz, and 110 Hz (100 + 10 Hz). Figure: Frequency Spectrums of AM Signal (Lower Sideband, Carrier, and Upper Sideband) A low-frequency message signal is modulated with a high-frequency carrier wave using a local oscillator to make communication possible. DSB, SSB, and VSB are common amplitude modulation techniques. We find a lot of bandwi...
Read more

Analog vs Digital Modulation Techniques | Advantages of Digital ...

Modulation Techniques Analog vs Digital Modulation Techniques... In the previous article, we've talked about the need for modulation and we've also talked about analog & digital modulations briefly. In this article, we'll discuss the main difference between analog and digital modulation in the case of digital modulation it takes a digital signal for modulation whereas analog modulator takes an analog signal.  Advantages of Digital Modulation over Analog Modulation Digital Modulation Techniques are Bandwidth efficient Its have good resistance against noise It can easily multiple various types of audio, voice signal As it is good noise resistant so we can expect good signal strength So, it leads high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) Alternatively, it provides a high data rate or throughput Digital Modulation Techniques have better swathing capability as compared to Analog Modulation Techniques  The digital system provides better security than the a...
Read more

Comparing Baseband and Passband Implementations of m-ary QAM

  Let's assume your original message signal is: 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1. If you want to modulate it using 4-QAM, then your baseband signal will be: 4-QAM Symbols (Real + jImag) Symbol 0: -1.00 + j-1.00 Symbol 1: 1.00 + j-1.00 Symbol 2: -1.00 + j-1.00 Symbol 3: 1.00 + j-1.00 Symbol 4: 1.00 + j1.00   Now, if you want to transmit them through a typical wireless medium, you need to modulate the baseband signal with a carrier frequency (in our case, 50 Hz). The resulting passband signal looks like this               In the above code, the symbol rate is 5 symbols per second.   Detailed explanation 4-QAM Constellation Points In typical normalized 4-QAM, each symbol is mapped to a complex number: Bits Symbol (I + jQ) 00 -1 - 1j 01 -1 + 1j 11 +1 + 1j 10 +1 - 1j Each point lies on a square centered at the origin with I and Q values either +1 or -1. ...
Read more

Comparing Baseband and Passband Implementations of ASK, FSK, and PSK

📘 Overview 🧮 Baseband and Passband Implementations of ASK, FSK, and PSK 🧮 Difference betwen baseband and passband 📚 Further Reading 📂 Other Topics on Baseband and Passband ... 🧮 Baseband modulation techniques 🧮 Passband modulation techniques   Baseband modulation techniques are methods used to encode information signals onto a baseband signal (a signal with frequencies close to zero), allowing for efficient transmission over a communication channel. These techniques are fundamental in various communication systems, including wired and wireless communication. Here are some common baseband modulation techniques: Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) [↗] : In ASK, the amplitude of the baseband signal is varied to represent different symbols. Binary ASK (BASK) is a common implementation where two different amplitudes represent binary values (0 and 1). ASK is simple but susceptible to noise...
Read more

BER vs SNR for M-ary QAM, M-ary PSK, QPSK, BPSK, ...(MATLAB Code + Simulator)

📘 Overview of BER and SNR 🧮 Online Simulator for BER calculation of m-ary QAM and m-ary PSK 🧮 MATLAB Code for BER calculation of M-ary QAM, M-ary PSK, QPSK, BPSK, ... 📚 Further Reading 📂 View Other Topics on M-ary QAM, M-ary PSK, QPSK ... 🧮 Online Simulator for Constellation Diagram of m-ary QAM 🧮 Online Simulator for Constellation Diagram of m-ary PSK 🧮 MATLAB Code for BER calculation of ASK, FSK, and PSK 🧮 MATLAB Code for BER calculation of Alamouti Scheme 🧮 Different approaches to calculate BER vs SNR What is Bit Error Rate (BER)? The abbreviation BER stands for Bit Error Rate, which indicates how many corrupted bits are received (after the demodulation process) compared to the total number of bits sent in a communication process. BER = (number of bits received in error) / (total number of tran...
Read more

Online Simulator for ASK, FSK, and PSK

Try our new Digital Signal Processing Simulator!   Start Simulator for binary ASK Modulation Message Bits (e.g. 1,0,1,0) Carrier Frequency (Hz) Sampling Frequency (Hz) Run Simulation Simulator for binary FSK Modulation Input Bits (e.g. 1,0,1,0) Freq for '1' (Hz) Freq for '0' (Hz) Sampling Rate (Hz) Visualize FSK Signal Simulator for BPSK Modulation ...
Read more

Theoretical vs. simulated BER vs. SNR for ASK, FSK, and PSK (MATLAB Code + Simulator)

📘 Overview 🧮 Simulator for calculating BER 🧮 MATLAB Codes for calculating theoretical BER 🧮 MATLAB Codes for calculating simulated BER 📚 Further Reading BER vs. SNR denotes how many bits in error are received for a given signal-to-noise ratio, typically measured in dB. Common noise types in wireless systems: 1. Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) 2. Rayleigh Fading AWGN adds random noise; Rayleigh fading attenuates the signal variably. A good SNR helps reduce these effects. Simulator for calculating BER vs SNR for binary ASK, FSK, and PSK Calculate BER for Binary ASK Modulation Enter SNR (dB): Calculate BER Calculate BER for Binary FSK Modulation Enter SNR (dB): Calculate BER Calculate BER for Binary PSK Modulation Enter SNR (dB): Calculate BER BER vs. SNR Curves MATLAB Code for Theoretical BER % The code is written by SalimWireless.Com clc; clear; close all; % SNR va...
Read more