Does MATLAB automatically include antenna gain in phased.Rad​iator/phas​ed.Transmi​tter

I have a question regarding the MATLAB Phased Array Toolbox. In phased.Radiator and phased.Transmitter, the antenna gain does not seem to be automatically applied to the signal. When I manually add the gain and loss factor in phased.ReceiverPreamp, it does not change the noise floor the way it should.

My second question is about modeling antenna gain:

If a single antenna element has a gain of 14 dB, and a 16-element array has a total gain of 27 dB, which value should I use in the receiver or transmitter model — 14 dB (element gain) or 27 dB (array gain)?

Answer 1

[George]

Hi Muhammad,

You may need to share more details about your models for your question to be answered most effectively.

Using the Phased Array System Toolbox, you can model your system at varying levels of fidelity. The correct place to specify transmit power, transmitter gain, receiver gain, receiver noise level, etc. can vary depending on the fidelity of your model for your transmitter, transmit antenna, receive antenna, and receiver.

This topic page goes over these different levels of fidelity in detail, and hopefully addresses your questions:

Modeling Transmitter and Receiver with Increasing Levels of Fidelity - MATLAB & Simulink

In short, you need to make sure that both the phased.Transmitter and phased.Radiator, or phased.Collector and phased.Receiver/phased.ReceiverPreamp are configured to work together to effectively model signal transmission and reception.

Regarding your first question about the noise level of the system you are modeling, this unexpected behavior may be in part due to how the phased.ReceiverPreamp models noise. A new object was added to address this issue, called the phased.Receiver. Please refer to the section called "Comparison between phased.Receiver and phased.ReceiverPreamp" at the following page for further reading:

phased.Receiver - Receiver - MATLAB

Best,

George