SPSA-Based Successive Beamforming for Mobile Satellite Receivers with Phased Arrays

Abstract: Efficient and low-complexity beamforming design is an important element of satellite communication systems with mobile receivers equipped with phased arrays. In this work, we apply the simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) method with successive sub-array selection for finding the optimal antenna weights that maximize the received signal power at a uniform plane array (UPA). The proposed algorithms are based on iterative gradient approximation by injecting some carefully designed perturbations on the parameters to be estimated. Additionally, the successive sub-array selection technique enhances the performance of SPSA-based algorithms and makes them less sensitive to the initial beam direction. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithms can achieve efficient and reliable performance even when the initial beam direction is not well aligned with the satellite direction.