Distributed UAV Swarm Augmented Wideband Spectrum Sensing Using Nyquist Folding Receiver

Distributed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms are formed by multiple UAVs with increased portability, higher levels of sensing capabilities, and more powerful autonomy. These features make them attractive for many applications, potentially increasing the shortage of spectrum resources. In this paper, wideband spectrum sensing augmented technology is discussed for distributed UAV swarms to improve the utilization of spectrum using Nyquist folding receiver (NYFR). Compared to the other sub-sampling schemes, the NYFR has low hardware complexity, power consumption, and high recovery efficiency for non-strictly sparse conditions. In particular, there is a focus discussion on the sensing model of two multichannel scenarios for the distributed UAV swarms, one with a complete functional receiver for the UAV swarm with reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), and another with a decentralized UAV swarm equipped with a complete functional receiver for each UAV element. Moreover, the property for multiple pulse reconstruction is analyzed through the Gershgorin circle theorem, especially for very short pulses. And the block sparse recovery property is analyzed for wide bandwidth signals. Experiment results show augmented spectrum sensing efficiency under non-strictly sparse conditions, and improve the processing capability for multiple signals and wide bandwidth signals while reducing interference from folded noise and subsampled harmonics.