  An energy-efficient opportunistic collaborative beamformer with one-bit
feedback is proposed for ad hoc sensor networks over Rayleigh fading channels.
In contrast to conventional collaborative beamforming schemes in which each
source node uses channel state information to correct its local carrier offset
and channel phase, the proposed beamforming scheme opportunistically selects a
subset of source nodes whose received signals combine in a quasi-coherent
manner at the intended receiver. No local phase-precompensation is performed by
the nodes in the opportunistic collaborative beamformer. As a result, each node
requires only one-bit of feedback from the destination in order to determine if
it should or shouldn't participate in the collaborative beamformer. Theoretical
analysis shows that the received signal power obtained with the proposed
beamforming scheme scales linearly with the number of available source nodes.
Since the the optimal node selection rule requires an exhaustive search over
all possible subsets of source nodes, two low-complexity selection algorithms
are developed. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of opportunistic
collaborative beamforming with the low-complexity selection algorithms.
