Adaptive Communications with Swarm Aperture

Abstract

Utilizing mobile platforms such as a swarm of airborne mini-drones for distributed sensing and communications has been explored for more than one decade. Localization and synchronization of drone elements are the main challenges limiting its practical applications. In this paper, the localization and synchronization challenge is circumvented based on the concept of adaptive beamforming and wireless interconnect through frequency diversity. The technique is to (1) set up the swarm platforms as RF relay nodes that has minimum RF delay without going through the demodulation/remodulation process, while re-transmits the signal received from the base station at a long distance away (licensed band) to a common, secondary receiver at the terminal (unlicensed band) which is at proximity (2) apply adaptive beamforming algorithms to compensate for the delay difference among the elements in RF circuitry and in propagation paths caused by the different element positions. A two-element beamforming array uses to experimentally demonstrate the proposed concept. Improved signal to noise ratio has been demonstrated with such beamforming approach. The proposed system architecture provides an opportunity to develop practical swarm-drone for future wireless sensing and communication systems.