Design of digital beamforming subarrays for a multifunction radar

Digital beamforming (DBF) in phased array radars is an enabling architecture for advanced signal processing algorithms such as adaptive beamforming and high resolution angle estimation. At the current level of technology, DBF can only be practically implemented at a subarray level for large arrays operating at high frequencies. The choice of subarray layout has a significant impact on the performance of array signal processing algorithms. In this paper, an approach to optimizing the subarray layout with respect to select performance metrics is presented.