Distributed beamforming based on message passing

摘要

Methods and systems are provided for implementing a distributed algorithm for beam-forming (e.g., MVDR beam-forming) using a message-passing algorithm. The message-passing algorithm provides for computations to be performed in a distributed manner across a network, rather than in a centralized processing center or “fusion center”. The message-passing algorithm may also function for any network topology, and may continue operations when various changes are made in the network (e.g., nodes appearing, nodes disappearing, etc.). Additionally, the message-passing algorithm may minimize the transmission power per iteration and, depending on the particular network, also may minimize the transmission power required for communication between network nodes.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
a plurality of sensors in communication over a network, each of the plurality of sensors includes a communication device to transmit and receive signals and a processor, the processor configured to extract a plurality of signals, acquired by said communication device, from a subset of the sensors, the acquired signals used by said processor to compute parameters of a beam-forming algorithm, wherein the parameters of the beam-forming algorithm are computed in a distributed fashion over the plurality of sensors based on transmission of messages between the plurality of sensors according to a message-passing procedure, wherein the message-passing procedure functions for any topology of the network and the message-passing procedure that functions for any topology of the network is a generalized linear-coordinate descent (GLiCD) algorithm.