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ASIP design and algorithm implementation for beamforming in an antenna array

Oedzes, J.M. (2020) ASIP design and algorithm implementation for beamforming in an antenna array.

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Abstract:Beamforming is a technique that can be used in antenna arrays to electronically steer wireless signals in a specific direction for directional signal transmission or reception. The technique is widely used in a multitude of communication standards. Beamforming requires coefficients to be chosen for each of the antennas in the array, which proves to be a computationally intensive task. This work investigates the implementation of a 4-antenna beamforming algorithm for a hybrid beamforming system onto an application-specific instruction set processor (ASIP), which is a type of processor that can be extended with custom instructions to suit its specific application. The Tzscale processor was used as the base for the ASIP and is build upon the RISC-V instruction-set. An implementation of the Tzscale processor from the ASIP Designer Environment by Synopsys was used. Extensive complexity analysis is performed on the algorithm before implementation in C. After software optimizations, the required number of clock cycles already reduced by 44%. The ASIP was then extended with native fixed-point support for multiplication and division, as profiling results indicated that this would be the most beneficial for the implementation. The native fixed-point support reduced the required number of clock cycles for running the optimized software version by 61%, while only increasing the required area of the processor by 8%. Power numbers based on a 10% toggle rate show that the implementation also requires only 40% percent of the energy to run an algorithm cycle.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Subject:53 electrotechnology, 54 computer science
Programme:Embedded Systems MSc (60331)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/82855
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