Distributed Airborne Beamforming System

摘要

A distributed beamforming communication system including independent aerial nodes forming an antenna array is described. Described herein is a distributed beamforming array which utilizes independent aerial relay nodes or platforms (i.e. no strict control of relay node position, no communication between the relay nodes, and no coordinated transmission among the relay nodes) to form a distributed beamforming antenna.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
two or more aerial relay nodes, at least one of which can move independently of the other aerial relay nodes; a receiver to receive a transmission from each of the two or more aerial relay nodes and convert the transmission to a digital representation of each transmission at an output thereof, wherein the transmission comprises at least a data message and a reference signature for calculation of the desired beamforming weights; and an adaptive beamforming processor, coupled to the output of said receiver, said adaptive beamforming processor configured to:
receive the digital representation of each transmission including a signature sequence for calculation of the desired beamforming weights from each of the two or more aerial relay nodes;generate a set of beamforming weights for the signals received from two or more aerial relay nodes where said weights are based on the reference signature signal characteristics received from each respective aerial relay node wherein the set of weights compensates for at least physical spacing, relative motion, and signal timing;apply the weights to the respective transmission received from the respective relay node to form a signal received from an effective desired beampattern; andprocess the signal received through the desired beamformer.