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

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 14394 - 12
• Main Authors: Han, Yi, Zhang, Jingjing, Luo, Jinglin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 24.04.2025; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166/984; 639/705/258; All-directional DOA Estimation; GNSS-denied environment; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; No base station; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); UAV swarm; GNSS-denied environment; No base station; All-directional DOA Estimation; UAV swarm
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-97961-w

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.