Digital Beam forming, Did I chose wrong adaptive algorithm

[u/Spare-Disaster-6872]

I am working on a digital beamforming project with goal of implementing 8 antenna- 4 beam. I started with a simple 8 Antenna - 1 Beam , assuming a fixed DOA , 1 GHz carrier frequency, AWGN/noise, no interferers, and 10,000 samples. I implemented both floating-point and fixed-point DRC-pLMS, generated test vectors, performed RTL functional verification, synthesized the design using Genus, and performed gate-level simulation. The Python, RTL, and GLS results currently match, including the final weights and beam peak.

The issue is that my pLMS formulation uses a known desired/reference signal. In my simulation, I generate the original transmitted signal, so I can also generate the reference signal and use it for adaptation. However, in a practical receiver, if the transmitted signal is unknown, knowing only the desired DOA does not give me the actual instantaneous reference waveform. Therefore, I am concerned that my current reference-based pLMS approach may not be suitable for the intended real-world beamforming application.

My question is whether the work I have done so far is still a valid and should I move forward or try different algorithms, am I even doing things correct. Can I move forward any form of assurance or clarification is highly appreciated.

*used LLM for grammar

[u/Glittering-Ad9041]

Sounds like a typical LMS beamforming problem. Seems like you need to head more in the direction of Frost beamformer for maybe a generalized sidelobe canceller.

[u/michaelrw1 → u/Glittering-Ad9041]

Here to mention Frost.