Distributed Antenna Arrays for Simultaneous Nulling and Sectorized Jamming

This paper investigates distributed beamforming networks composed of multiple groups of mobile transmitters. The goal is to jointly optimize the beamforming weights and the orientation angles of the groups to maximize the radiated power over an angular sector containing an adversary while placing a null towards the client in order to improve the communication security of the client. The antennas in each group may be closely spaced forming a compact array and mutual coupling effects are fully included. The joint optimization problem is computationally difficult so several related optimization problems are considered that lead to simpler solutions. The approach is frequency-agnostic but is particularly appealing for low frequencies where the wavelength is relatively large and compact arrays simplify positioning and synchronization in the network. Numerical simulations are presented that validate the effectiveness of the methods.