Design and Implementation of a Beam-Tracking Phase array Antenna System

for Real-Time Target Tracking

Background: Phase array antenna beam tracking technology has emerged as a cornerstone in
communication systems, addressing the growing need for reliable, high speed, and flexible
connectivity in dynamic environments. Phased arrays are composed of multiple radiating
elements, each capable of independently controlling the phase and amplitude of the transmitted
or received signal. This feature enables the antenna to steer its beam electronically, without
physical movement, to track moving targets or adjust coverage in real time. The ability to
dynamically reconfigure beam direction makes phased arrays ideal for high mobility scenarios
where maintaining a strong communication link is critical.
In modern wireless systems, beam tracking plays a pivotal role in enabling a seamless
connectivity. Traditional fixed-beam antennas often struggle to maintain consistent performance
in the face of user mobility or environmental changes, such as multipath effects or obstructions.
Phased array beam tracking technology overcomes these limitations by continuously aligning the
antenna’s beam toward the target, ensuring maximum signal strength, reduced latency, and
enhanced link reliability.
In sub-6GHz communication, where frequency above 1GHz are used, beamforming and tracking
are essential to compensate for high path loss and directional signal propagation. Beam tracking
ensures that users, even in motion, experience uninterrupted high speed data transfer. It also
supports network densification by focusing signals toward individual users, reducing interference
and maximizing spectral efficiency.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks rely heavily on beam tracking to maintain links as
satellite move rapidly across the sky. Phased arrays are crucial in these systems, as they allow
ground stations to dynamically follow satellites without mechanical steering, enabling faster and
more precise tracking. This is especially important in providing global broadband coverage and
low latency connectivity for remote regions.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as drones, require robust communication links for
command, control, and data transmission. Phased array beam tracking ensures stable
connectivity by dynamically adjusting the antenna’s beam as the UAV moves unpredictably. This
capability is vital for applications like surveillance, delivery services, and disaster response,
where communication reliability can significantly impact mission success.
The integration of phased array beam-tracking technology into modern communication systems
addresses the challenges posed by user mobility, environmental variability, and high-frequency
signal propagation. Its adaptability, precision, and real-time responsiveness make its
indespensable in meeting the demands of next generation wireless networks, satellite
constellations, and UAV communication systems. As communication needs continue to evolve,
phased array beam-tracking technology will remain at the forefront of innovation, enabling a
future defined by ubiquitous and high-performance connectivity.

State of Art
The phased array plays an important part in our proposed system, the choice of antenna array
design will determine the performance such as operating bandwidth, gain, and sidelobe level.
Antenna array design seem to be a popular topic in literature, however, the applications were
mainly focused on the area such as 5G [1], X-band [2], LTE[3], 2.4GHz band[37] and 2.35 GHz
to 2.8 GHz/5GHz to 5.5 GHz [38]. In the Wi-Fi arena such as 802.11a/an/ac, the literature is
mostly focused on the array miniaturization, enhance the radiation performance, structure and
left with limited work on enabling the array to operate in a wider band that covers the 4.9GHz
licensed band and 5.1-5.9 GHz unlicensed band. For instance, in [39], a 2 X 4 dual-polarization
antenna array that operates from 5.15-5.85 GHz with the realized gain of 12dBi was proposed. In
another work[40], the complementary split ring resonators (CSRR) method was used to reduce
the size of
5GHz patch antenna, however, the gain suffered at only -0.16dBi and limited operating
bandwidth around 80MHz, similarly, in [41], the 8 elements MIMO antenna with 6.5dBi gain
and narrow operating frequency bandwidth from 4.985 to 5.15 GHz has been proposed.
Furthermore, in [45] a 3 monopole patches antenna array with inverted L and inverted Z came
with slightly wider bandwidth covering from 5 to 6GHz with achievable gain from 2 to 3.7dBi
was proposed. In our system, a wideband and high gain phased array that operates from 5 – 6
GHz band is introduced.

Detail of planning for design ,development of Phase array antenna tracking system
Among many antenna types of antenna element structure, the Microstrip patch antenna structure
is popular type of element, it is simple to design and easily integrated into the antenna array that
supports higher gain, the small form factor of MPA also makes it popular for application in
mobile devices, vehicular applications, and long range communication antennas. The MPA
structure consists of four parts(patch, port feed, substrate, and ground plane) as described in
fig.1. A thin copper patch is laid over a non-conductive dielectric substrate with the finite ground
plane at the opposite side of substrate. The patch is made of copper foil coated with anti
corrosion material such as gold, the substrate material use in PCB usually consists of fibreglass
with a dielectric constant between 2 to 4.5. Copper foil or solid metal plate can be used as a
ground plane depends on the type of application. The conventional MPA antenna normally comes
with a narrower operating bandwidth around 4% and lower gain of less than 5dBi. In practical
application, many works, and techniques have been carried out to overcome the limitation and
improve the performance of the MPA to make it more useable , the next section covers the
performance of the MPA to make it more useable. The performance parameters of MPA such as
gain, operating bandwidth and in-band gain ripple.
The array was built by using multiple single antenna elements placed in the plane horizontally
and vertically. The single elements constructed with the dual substrate and feed via capacitive
coupling technique will be chosen in our design. The geometrical view of dual substrate
capacitive feed MPA is shown in the fig., the large patch as shown acts as a radiator, the small
patch functions as a capacitive feeding network to allow the energy feed through from the
coaxial feed to radiating patch. The capacitive feed that isolates the radiating patch from the
coaxial fed by a thin air gap will reduce the potential mismatch that may occur between the
coaxial feeding cable and patch, on the other hand, the bandwidth and gain of MPA element can
be enhanced by dual layers of the substrate structure. The radiating patch of antenna was
designed on an F4BTM substrate with relative permittivity Er=3, to resonate at 5.5 GHz. The
optimum frequency bandwidth can be optimized by adjusting the capacitive feed length (t),
width (s), distance to patch (d), and the space of airgap (g). We will use the design as a base and
further optimize through parameter optimization to improve frequency bandwidth to cover our
interest band from 5-6 GHz as well as enhancing the antenna gain and cap the returned loss to
below 10 dB.
The phased array was constructed by arranging, multiple MPA elements to form bigger array that
directly contributes to the increase in the ground plane size. The performance impact from the
size of ground plane size.
The antenna array consists of multiple single antenna elements placed vertically and horizontally
in the same plane, the spacing of the elements are equally spaced in the array form. Phased
arrays are used to synthesize a specific radiation pattern that can not be achieved with a single
element antenna, to achieve that the spacing between the elements need to be properly defined
and optimized to achieve optimum performance in terms of gain, sidelobe, beamwidth. Before
the integration of the single element into the bigger array, the first thing is to determine the
necessary element spacing, this may impact the performance and size of final phase array. The
proposed 4 X 4 array will be first evaluated using ANSYS HFSS. The gain, sidelobe and
beamwidth performance with respect to the element spacing in the antenna array will be studied.
Once the spacing is fixed, the next step is to integrate the vertical spaced elements into a single
feed point via the microstrip feeding network. There are two types of popular microstrip feeding
network for MPA array design, they are single feed(series feed) and multiple lines feed(corporate
feed) as shown in fig. The drawback of
T/R module design
The block diagram of the T/R module is presented in fig.1 T/R module has both transmitter and
receiver functions that can be switched using the single pole two throw (SP2T) switch. Each T/R
module consists of necessary phase components such as LNA(Low noise amplifier), phase
shifter, attenuator, RF switched and control peripherals to support the necessary functions
required to steer the radiating beam of the phased array. The T/R module was designed to operate
to 5-6 GHz. It is designed to support an nX4 antenna array with the built in high speed single
pole four throw (SP4T) RF switch to switch between the element in n X4 array. It is capable of
performing 90 sector scanning. The T/R module was designed using COTS components and
commercial manufacturing technology, that increases its scalablity and further cost reduction by
volume production, the recursive caliberation was introduced to enhance the T/R module
performance and necessary caliberation during mass production. The circuit design consideration
is explained below.
Receiver: The main function of the receiver is to amplify the RF signal received from the
antenna and to keep the noise figure as low as possible to achieve the good receiver sensitivity,
hence the LNA has to be placed as close as possible to the antenna.
Transmitter: The transmitter function is to boost the RF signal before it is transmitted to the air
via the antenna, the PA is included to boost the RF signal and compensate the insertion loss
exhibited by the phase shifter, RF switches and insertion loss due to PCB traces, where the
internally matched 3-stages commercially available PA was used to minimise the antenna
mismatch and possibly degrade the transmitter performance during beamforming operation. An
RF attenuator was included before the PA to attenuate the RF power before entering the PA, it
provides a 30dB dynamic transmit power range. Similar to the receiver, the phase of the
transmitted signal can be adjusted by controlling a digital phase shifter located at a common
path. The amplitude and phase are necessary to vary in order to set the weight of the RF signal
that is required during the beamforming process.
RF switches: two types of RF switches are used in the T/R module design. (1) SP2T to switch
between the transmitter and. Receiver path (2) SP4T is a high speed RF switch to switch between
each element in the phased array for beam scanning operation to channel the RF signals to the
high speed processor or FPGA for decoding.
Power Supply: The T/R module is powered by the multiple power supplies +5V, +3.3V, -3.3V, -
5V any stable commercially available power source can be used to power up T/R module.
Electric interface and control: The interface controller board is designed in such as way that it
allows manual control via dip switches for digital control and resistive trimmer for analog
control signal. Bit 0-5 transistor-transistor logic(TTL) for phase adjustment, analogue voltage
signal Pctrl to control transmit power of the RF chain and the analog signal Pdet that can be used
to monitor the transmit power generated by PA.
PCB layout: The PCB layout was designed with the following consideration (1) impedance
control, all the RF trace are laid on the top layer for better CPWG impedance control with a solid
copper plane on the second layer separated by RO4003 substrate and the impedance controlled
traces. (2) electromagnetic compatiblity (EMC) consideration, the control signal, power plane
and additional ground plane are laid on layer 3, layer 4 consists of a solid ground plane that acts
as a shield for optimum EMC performance, (3) thermal consideration, the heat generating
components such as PA will have its metal body soldered directly to the big copper plane on the
top later of the PCB, and the bottom layer of the PCB will have an exposed copper to install the
heatsink when needed. (4) cost consideration, the RO4003 substrate material cost is relatively
higher compared to FR4 material, therefore except the substrate between layer 1 and layer 2 is
utilizing RO4003, FR-4 substrate will be used for all other layers where impedance control is not
required.
RF parameter characterization: The RF parameters such as transmit power or amplitude and
phase errors are characterized using the recursive calibration approach, and the calibrated
parameters are stored in memory and will be used for self compensation during the beamforming
process. The SLL of the beam can be optimized by varying the amplitude of each antenna ports
which is represented by amplitude distribution.
Moving target tracking using Phase array antenna:
The vehicle is loaded with a map that includes the geographical location of all access points(AP)
installed as the roadside infrastructure. When the vehicle is on the move, the sensor data is
collected and through the aids of sensor fusion to produce vehicle information such as location,
speed, time, and heading, with the known location of the AP, the system can determine which AP
the vehicle should connect to and what angle the beamforming antenna should concentrate its
beam to have optimum point to point connections. When the vehicle is passed the AP, the system
can predict what is the next AP and its location for the moving vehicle to roam to, while the
mobile client prepared to roam over, the beamforming engine will dynamically steer its beam
towards the targeted AP. The location and heading information of the moving vehicle are
transmitted to the backend, the backend will use this information to determine the location and
direction of the mobile vehicle with respect to AP that is serving the connection and steers its
beam toward to vehicle. The sensors aided beamforming diagram that combined with the light
direction of arrival (DOA) engine of the next generation beamforming system. With this hybrid
approach by combining the sensor fusion output with the light computation output from the DOA
engine, it can further improve the accuracy of the beam steering compare to the method with
DOA itself. Furthermore, the existence of sensor data will reduce the processing complexity of
DOA engine, hence reducing the processing power of DOA module.

Sensor aided beamforming for phased array antenna

The system combines sensor fusion, direction of arrival(DOA) estimation, and beamforming in
the following manner. Phase array antenna forms the core of the tracking system. It consists of a
large number of individual antenna elements whose phases are adjusted to steer the beam in the
direction of the target. The phase array antenna can quickly change the beam direction by
altering the phase shifts between the elements, enabling real time target tracking. To assist the
phased array antenna in beamforming, various sensors are integrated to provide supplementary
data:
Accelerometer: Measures linear acceleration. When combined with gyroscope, it helps estimate
the movement dynamics of the tracking system and can help correct errors in position.
Gyroscope: Measures angular velocity or rotational movements. When fused with accelerometer
data, it helps in estimating the orientation of the antenna system.
Odometer: Provides data on the movement of the tracking platform (such as a moving vehicle or
drone), helping estimate its speed and direction.
GPS: Provides precise global position data, allowing for accurate location tracking of the system
itself and , in some cases, the target.
BLE: BLE beacons can provide relative positioning information, especially for indoor or short
range applications. In some cases , BLE can be used to detect targets that are equipped with BLE
transmitters.
Sensor fusion: Sensors fusion refers to the process of integration data from multiple sensors to
create a more accurate, reliable, and complete representation of the system’s state. This process is
essential in many real time systems, especially in dynamic environments where a single sensor
may be insufficient or prone to errors. By combining data from various sensors, we can
overcome the limitations of individual sensors and improve overall system performance. Sensors
such as accelerometers, gyroscopes , GPS provide different types of information. Each sensor
has its strength and weaknesses. For example, GPS provides accurate position data but might
lose signal in areas like tunnels or dense urban environments. Accelerometers provides motion
and acceleration data, but they are subject to drift and noise over time. Gyroscopes provide
orientation or angular velocity but can accumulate errors over time. Individually each sensor may
give an incomplete or noisy picture of environment. Sensor fusion is to use algorithm that
intelligently combine sensor data to provide an improved estimate the state of system. This state
typically includes variables like position, velocity, acceleration, and orientation of the system and
target.

-The state vector xk can represent the position, velocity, and orientation of both the platform and
the target. For example:
Xk=[x,y,x, vx,vy,vz]
Where x,y,z are the target position coordinates and vx,vy,vz are the target velocity components.
Prediction: The motion model F predicts the next position and velocity of the target based on the
previous state and velocity. The control input uk (such as velocity or direction updates) can be
taken from sensors like accelerometer or odometer.

Parts Part number/Maker Key parameters Key specifications

Phase shifter HMC1133LP5E/ADI Operating 4.8-6.2 GHz
Frequency 5 dB
 Insertion loss 5.625
Phase resolution 360
Phase coverage 2.8
Phase error +5V,-5V
Supply voltage
RF attenuator IDTF2258NLGK/IDT Operating 50-6000 MHz
Frequency 2.7 dB
Insertion loss 33.6 dB
Attenuation Range 33 dB/volt
Attenuation slope 0 V to 3.6 V
Control voltage 3.15 V to 5.25 V
range
Supply voltage
Power amplifier TQP5525/Qorvo Operating 4.9 -5.925 GHz
Frequency 32 dB
Gain 32 dBm
P1dB 31.5 dBm
Psat +3.3 to +5 V
Supply Voltage
LNA HMC717ALP3E/ADI Operating 4.8-6 GHz
Frequency 1.3 dB
Noise Figure 14.5 dB
Gain 18 dBm
P1 dB 19 dBm
Output Psat +5 V
Supply Voltage

RF switch HMC8038LP4CETR/ADI Operation 0.1-6 GHz

Frequency SP2T
Switch 1.3 dB
Insertion loss 60 ns
t Rise 60 ns
t fall 51 dB
Port Isolation
RFC to RF1-2 (off)
Supply Voltage +3.3 V
RF Switch (SP4T) ADRF5044/ ADI [100] Operating frequency 0.1-30 GHz
Switch SP4T
Insertion loss 1.7 dB
t Rise 4 ns
t fall 4 ns
Port Isolation 55 dB
RFC to RF1-4 (off)
Supply voltage +3.3 V,-3.3 V