Scale-Free Beamforming using Swarm Arrays for Remote Sensing under Interference
2026-07-03 • Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster ComputingInformation Theory
AI summaryⓘ
The authors study a group (swarm) of relay devices that work together to send a signal clearly to a center while blocking unwanted signals. They created a new method that lets each relay figure out how to best adjust its signal without knowing the communication details ahead of time. Importantly, their method works efficiently no matter how many relays there are because the devices can only communicate as a whole group, not individually. Despite this strict communication rule, their approach can still perform useful signal filtering and handles noise and changing conditions well.
swarm arrayautonomous relayszero-forcing beamformingdistributed algorithmfusion centerchannel knowledgescale-free computationsignal interferencecommunication networksnoise robustness
Authors
Bradley Hamilton, Raghu Mudumbai, Soura Dasgupta, Benjamin Peiffer
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.