Distributed beamforming with uniform circular array formation in wireless sensor networks

Collaborative beamforming (CB) has been introduced in the context of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to enhance the communication range and energy efficiency of the networks. CB relies on a subset of nodes in the network which acts as a virtual antenna array to collectively transmit a common signal to an intended location. Due to random deployment of the sensor nodes in the networks, proper selection of participating nodes to perform distributed CB is vital to achieve better array pattern synthesis. Different topologies of the participating nodes will produce different impact on transmission gains. In this paper, a node selection method based on uniform circular array formation is presented. The analysis is carried out with the assumption that the sensor nodes are randomly distributed with uniform distribution. Statistical evaluation on the average beampattern is carried out to demonstrate the behavior and properties of the mainlobe, and sidelobe level (SLL) for the selected scheme.