Feasible Capacity of Distributed Beamforming in Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks

Beamforming is a signal processing technique which is aimed at focusing the transmission energy in the desired direction through the use of antenna arrays and phase alignment. In this paper we explore the benefits of using distributed antenna beamforming in multi-hop sensor wireless networks. The major challenge in using distributed beamforming in ad hoc wireless networks is that the relative disposition of wireless devices cannot be controlled with high precision as required by antenna arrays. We develop several optimization techniques for antenna radiation pattern generation in multi-hop ad hoc settings and analyze their effectiveness through simulations. In particular, we propose an optimization scheme for single hop beampattern generation and then show how to utilize it in a multi-hop environment.