A single hop architecture exploiting cooperative beamforming for wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a single hop architecture for a cooperative wireless sensor network and analyze the attained distributed beamforming gain performance using the theory of random arrays. All nodes in the system transmit a single carrier such that the signals add up constructively towards the direction of the fusion center. The potential directive beamforming gains are investigated for different sensor network densities which are expressed as the number of nodes per carrier wavelength squared. The multiple access capability of the sensor network is achieved by employing an on-off keying orthogonal signaling technique, which is usually employed in atmospheric optical systems. Finally, we investigate the average loss in directivity gain when the received signal from each sensor node follows a Ricean distribution. The results show that high directive gains can be achieved in practical wireless sensor networks using simple sensor nodes.