Teacher - Student Graphical User Interface For Testing And Comparing The Performance Of Adaptive Algorithms Used In Smart Antenna Networks

Smart antenna networks are receiving a lot of interest in these days, as new advanced and fast processors are being developed. Capable of pointing the main beam in a certain desired direction and create nulls in the radiation pattern in the direction of interference, smart antenna networks are a good solution in a bandwidth limited environment as the number of users continuously grow. This technique is called beamforming. For many years smart antennas were not practical as they involve the use of a processor that runs an adaptive algorithm. Slow processors meant low speed of convergence and a slow adaptation. There are a lot of adaptive algorithms that can fur fill the job that a smart antenna system has to accomplish. The main purpose of this paper is however to present the main advantages of creating a MATLAB GUI (Graphical User Interface) in order to study these algorithms. The GUI described studies 62 adaptive algorithms, some described in literature, some propose by the authors. We will make a short description of the LMS (Least Mean Squares Algorithm), the APA (Affine Projection Algorithm) and the GASSAPA (Gradient Adaptive Scalar Step Size Affine Projection Algorithm) and compare them with the use of the graphical interface.