mmAlert: mmWave Link Blockage Prediction via Passive Sensing

TL;DR

mmAlert uses passive RF sensing with dual beams to detect and track mobile blockers, accurately predicting millimeter wave link blockages with high success rate in real-time scenarios.

Contribution

This work introduces a passive sensing system that predicts mmWave link blockage by tracking Doppler shifts and AoAs of scattered signals, a novel approach for real-time blockage prediction.

Findings

Detects walking person near LoS with high accuracy

Predicts 90% of LoS blockages within 1.4 seconds

Tracks mobile blocker trajectory using Doppler and AoA data

Abstract

In this letter, the mmAlert system, predicting millimeter wave (mmWave) link blockage during data communication, is elaborated and demonstrated. The passive sensing method is adopted for mobile blocker detection, where two receive beams with separated radio frequency (RF) chains are equipped at the data communication receiver. One receive beam is aligned to the direction of line-of-sight (LoS) path, and the other one periodically sweeps the region close to the LoS path. By comparing the signals received by the above two beams, the Doppler frequencies of the signal scattered from the mobile blocker can be detected. Furthermore, by tracking the Doppler frequencies and the angle-of-arrivals (AoAs) of the scattered signals, the trajectory of the mobile blocker can be estimated, such that the potential link blockage can be predicted by assuming consistent mobile velocity. It is demonstrated via experiments that the mmAlert system can always detect the motions of the walking person close to the LoS path, and predict 90\% of the LoS blockage with sensing time of 1.4 seconds.