Adaptive Beamforming Using Scattering From a Drone Swarm

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Abstract
There may be situations where a direct line of sight between a transmitter and a receiver is blocked. In such a situation it may be possible to transmit a signal upward from a transmitter to a swarm of drones, each of which carries a scattering object. By positioning each drone properly, the scattered signal from the drones can add coherently in a given direction, forming a beam in that direction. The altitude of each drone is used as a degree of freedom in order to change the phase of the signal scattered by the drone. For a given set of horizontal drone positions, the drone altitudes can be determined to produce a main beam in a given direction. The drone positions can also be optimized to focus a beam in a given direction while producing pattern nulls in other prescribed directions with very small sidelobes.