Evaluation of the Self-Interference Cancellation Limits of Full-Duplex Antenna Arrays Using Zynq UltraScale+ RF System-On-Chip Board

Paper in proceeding, 2024

We present a procedure and experimental setup using a state-of-the-art commercial RF system-on-chip (RFSoC) to evaluate self-interference cancellation in full-duplex array antennas. Our focus is on assessing the capacity of the system's interference cancellation abilities, namely how effectively the technology can perform nulling in the presence of hardware imperfections and practical testing conditions. This step is crucial for evaluating complex array transceivers that comprise multiple non-linear components, such as power- and low-noise amplifiers, and that require advanced beamforming strategies to maximize antenna gain, effective radiated power, receiving sensitivity, etc, while canceling self-interference. Our initial experimental setup includes a 1 × 5 Vivaldi antenna array operating in the 3 - 6 GHz band, connected to the digital transceiver system on the RFSoC board. We introduce a calibration procedure to compensate for DAC-induced errors and synchronize the transmit channels during measurements. This calibration procedure shows a cancellation limit of up to 63 dB.