Iterative Positioning Algorithm for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Based on Communication Signals in Navigation Denial Environment

For the relative positioning of drone swarms, considering the navigation denial environments and the challenges of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) caused by complex electromagnetic interference in real-world adversarial scenarios, this paper proposes an iterative enhancement positioning method based on intra-swarm inter-drone communication signals without the need for external equipment. Firstly, a joint iterative positioning system is developed using a multi-element antenna array. The system estimates the spatial angle information of drones through a direction-finding module, then improves the SNR using beamforming techniques by combining the direction-finding data. The synthesized signal is then input into the ranging module for spatial distance estimation, producing a single positioning result. Secondly, to address the unsatisfactory performance of single-positioning results and the issue of system information wastage, iterative enhancement is applied by coupling the current estimate as prior information to improve the overall estimation. Finally, experimental simulations validate that the iterative positioning system improves the accuracy by 55% compared to single-positioning, ensuring the stable flight of the swarm in navigation denial environments.