Range-Selective Beamforming With Reduced Computation to Illuminate/Suppress Multiple Dot-Like Loci in the Far Field

The recently proposed “equivalent transmit beamforming” (ETB) scheme for the frequency diverse array effectively forms a beampattern that spotlights a particular spatial location in the far field. This contrasts with conventional beamforming that illuminates the whole range along the desired direction. However, the pioneering ETB method is computationally challenging to execute in time-sensitive scenarios. As such, this article proposes a lower complexity scheme for ETB based on a convex optimization reformulation with a reduced number of degrees of freedom. Moreover, whereas the ETB method lights up one spot at a time, the proposed method can illuminate/suppress several designated spots simultaneously while producing a beampattern that exhibits a finer spatial resolution. Numerical simulations are conducted to verify the efficacy of the proposed approach.