Collaborative beamforming techniques for data transmission in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Collaborative beamforming is a technique for improving energy efficiency of uplink communications in wireless sensor networks. It is done by synchronizing carrier phases of individual sensor nodes precisely enough, so that they jointly form a beampattern with a stable mainlobe. In this paper, we analyze the impact of additive noise in the received signal on the behavior of an iterative phase synchronization scheme. Besides, we analyze the bit error rate performance of such collaborative transmission. In particular, we consider a decentralized antenna array where sensors are allowed to perform distributed carrier synchronization and collaborative data transmission simultaneously. We evaluate the system performance by using numerical simulations and provide a semi-analytical solution for the algorithm convergence characteristics and the overall bit error rate as a function of the algorithm's iteration index.