On the impact of the antenna radiation patterns in passive radio sensing

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-isotropic antenna radiation patterns affect passive radio sensing accuracy, adapting electromagnetic models to account for angular filtering and experimentally quantifying diffraction and multipath effects.

Contribution

It introduces adaptations of diffraction-based EM models for non-uniform antenna patterns and evaluates their impact on sensing accuracy in complex environments.

Findings

Antenna radiation patterns significantly influence sensing accuracy.

Diffraction and multipath effects are quantifiable in smart antenna environments.

Model adaptations improve understanding of radio sensing in complex scenarios.

Abstract

Electromagnetic (EM) body models based on the scalar diffraction theory allow to predict the impact of subject motions on the radio propagation channel without requiring a time-consuming full-wave approach. On the other hand, they are less effective in complex environments characterized by significant multipath effects. Recently, emerging radio sensing applications have proposed the adoption of smart antennas with non-isotropic radiation characteristics to improve coverage.This letter investigates the impact of antenna radiation patterns in passive radio sensing applications. Adaptations of diffraction-based EM models are proposed to account for antenna non-uniform angular filtering. Next, we quantify experimentally the impact of diffraction and multipath disturbance components on radio sensing accuracy in environments with smart antennas.