Scale-Free Beamforming using Swarm Arrays for Remote Sensing under Interference

Abstract

We consider a swarm array of autonomous relays that seek to cooperatively forward a desired signal to a fusion center with the maximum possible fidelity while canceling out a number of interferers. We present a distributed algorithm for computing the optimal zero-forcing beamforming weights at the relays without requiring prior channel knowledge. Crucially, our algorithm is {\it scale-free} in the sense that the computational and bandwidth overheads are completely independent of the size of the array. We build on recent work that introduced the concept of a Collective Array that enables such {\it scale-free} computation by imposing a constraint that the array must always function as a {\it swarm} i.e. array elements can only ever communicate with external nodes collectively and never individually. While this is a very severe restriction, we show that it allows useful computations such as zero-forcing beamforming while being robust to noise and channel time-variations.