An Indoor Environment Sensing and Localization System via mmWave Phased Array

TL;DR

This paper presents mmReality, a millimeter wave-based indoor sensing system using phased arrays to reconstruct room layouts and localize devices with high accuracy, leveraging beamforming, signal processing, and multi-path analysis.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel indoor sensing system that combines phased array beamforming, MUSIC algorithm, and multi-carrier ranging for room layout reconstruction and device localization.

Findings

Successfully reconstructs room layouts using mmWave signals.

Achieves device localization with single access point.

Handles both LoS and NLoS propagation paths.

Abstract

An indoor layout sensing and localization system in 60GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) band, named mmReality, is elaborated in this paper. The mmReality system consists of one transmitter and one mobile receiver, each with a phased array and a single radio frequency (RF) chain. To reconstruct the room layout, the pilot signal is delivered from the transmitter to the receiver via different pairs of transmission and receiving beams, so that the signals at all antenna elements can be resolved. Then, the spatial smoothing and two-dimensional multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm is applied to detect the angle-of-arrival (AoAs) and angle-of-departure (AoDs) of the rays from the transmitter to the receiver. Moreover, the technique of multi-carrier ranging is adopted to measure the distance of each propagation path. Synthesizing the above geometrical parameters, the location of receiver relative to the transmitter can be pinpointed, both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) paths can also be determined. Therefore, the room layout can be reconstructed by moving the receiver and repeating the above measurement in different locations of the room. At the end, we show that the reconstructed room layout can be utilized to locate a mobile device according to its AoA spectrum, even with single access point.