Analysis of Beamforming Antenna for Practical Indoor Location-Tracking Application

The single antenna used in conventional ultra-wideband radar has difficulty tracking targets over a wide range because of a relatively narrow beamwidth. Herein, we propose a beamforming antenna that can track targets over a wide range by electronically controlling the main beam of the antenna. The proposed beamforming antenna was fabricated by connecting a 1 × 4 linear array antenna and a 4 × 4 Butler matrix. The Butler matrix was fabricated in a laminated substrate using two TRF-45 substrates. Furthermore, the input Ports 1–4 generate a phase difference at regular intervals in each output port, and the output phase is fed to the array antenna. The proposed tapered-slot antenna was fabricated on a Taconic TLY substrate, and the impedance bandwidth of the antenna was achieved within a wide bandwidth of 4.32 GHz by satisfying a VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio) ≤2 within the 1.45–5.78 GHz band. Furthermore, the fabricated antenna has directional radiation patterns, which was found to be a suitable characsteristic for location tracking in a certain direction. Finally, the beamforming antenna has four beamforming angles, and to verify the performance for an indoor location tracking application of impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar, it was connected to an NVA-R661 module.