Work

Relative DOA estimation method for UAV swarm based on phase difference information without fixed anchors

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: A key challenge for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms is achieving inter-aircraft relative direction of arrival (DOA) estimation in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) denied environments without relying on fixed base stations. This paper proposes a Ultra-wide Bandwidth (UWB) based method where each UAV acts as both a transmitter and receiver, effectively functioning as a mobile base station. A theoretical framework for all-directional DOA estimation using a regular tetrahedral array is derived, resolving phase ambiguities via a genetic algorithm (GA) with phase difference information. Simulation results demonstrate that GA-UWB algorithm has a better performance than WP-UWB. When considering noise both in time difference and phase difference information, the algorithm proposed in this paper has a higher success rate.

Source: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-97961-w

Authors: Yi Han, Jingjing Zhang, Jinglin Luo

Institutions: Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, Foshan University

Language: English

Topic: Direction-of-Arrival Estimation Techniques

Subfield: Signal Processing

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,690

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China