Scaling to Many Beams by Choosing the Right Beamformer for the Application

There are many advantages to scaling antenna and beam count in multi-beam phased arrays, but there is also much debate on how best to do so efficiently. An especially important decision is where to place the beamformer in the signal chain. This talk examines a hardware informed model for comparison between baseband analog and digital beamforming in a shared aperture array, breaking down the decision into intuitive designer chosen specifications and comparing in power.