Performance Analysis of a Cross-layer Collaborative Beamforming Approach in the Presence of Channel and Phase Errors

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the performance of a cross-layer collaborative beamforming scheme in wireless networks, focusing on the effects of channel estimation errors and phase inaccuracies on beamforming quality and symbol error rates.

Contribution

It provides an analytical performance evaluation of a recent MAC-PHY cross-layer beamforming approach considering realistic imperfections.

Findings

Performance degrades with channel estimation errors.

Phase errors significantly impact beamforming accuracy.

Analytical models predict beampattern and SEP under realistic conditions.

Abstract

Collaborative beamforming enables nodes in a wireless network to transmit a common message over long distances in an energy efficient fashion. However, the process of making available the same message to all collaborating nodes introduces delays. The authors recently proposed a MAC-PHY cross-layer scheme that enables collaborative beamforming with significantly reduced collaboration overhead. The method requires knowledge of node locations and internode channel coefficients. In this paper, the performance of that approach is studied analytically in terms of average beampattern and symbol error probability (SEP) under realistic conditions, i.e., when imperfect channel estimates are used and when there are phase errors in the contributions of the collaborating nodes at the receiver.