Indoor wireless communications and applications

Chapter 3 addresses challenges in radio link and system design in indoor scenarios. Given the fact that most human activities take place in indoor environments, the need for supporting ubiquitous indoor data connectivity and location/tracking service becomes even more important than in the previous decades. Specific technical challenges addressed in this section are(i), modelling complex indoor radio channels for effective antenna deployment, (ii), potential of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radios for supporting higher data rates, and (iii), feasible indoor localisation and tracking techniques, which are summarised in three dedicated sections of this chapter

A Statistical Analysis of Multipath Interference for Impulse Radio UWB Systems

In this paper, we develop a statistical characterization of the multipath interference in an Impulse Radio (IR)-UWB system, considering the standardized IEEE 802.15.4a channel model. In such systems, the chip length has to be carefully tuned as all the propagation paths located beyond this limit can cause interframe/intersymbol interferences (IFI/ISI). Our approach aims at computing the probability density function (PDF) of the power of all multipath components with delays larger than the chip time, so as to prevent such interferences. Exact analytical expressions are derived first for the probability that the chip length falls into a particular cluster of the multipath propagation model and for the statistics of the number of paths spread over several contiguous clusters. A power delay profile (PDP) approximation is then used to evaluate the total interference power as the problem appears to be mathematically intractable. Using the proposed closed-form expressions, and assuming minimal prior information on the channel state, a rapid update of the chip time value is enabled so as to control the signal to interference plus noise ratio.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures; submitted to the Journal of the Franklin Institute on Sept. 24, 201

An indoor variance-based localization technique utilizing the UWB estimation of geometrical propagation parameters

A novel localization framework is presented based on ultra-wideband (UWB) channel sounding, employing a triangulation method using the geometrical properties of propagation paths, such as time delay of arrival, angle of departure, angle of arrival, and their estimated variances. In order to extract these parameters from the UWB sounding data, an extension to the high-resolution RiMAX algorithm was developed, facilitating the analysis of these frequency-dependent multipath parameters. This framework was then tested by performing indoor measurements with a vector network analyzer and virtual antenna arrays. The estimated means and variances of these geometrical parameters were utilized to generate multiple sample sets of input values for our localization framework. Next to that, we consider the existence of multiple possible target locations, which were subsequently clustered using a Kim-Parks algorithm, resulting in a more robust estimation of each target node. Measurements reveal that our newly proposed technique achieves an average accuracy of 0.26, 0.28, and 0.90 m in line-of-sight (LoS), obstructed-LoS, and non-LoS scenarios, respectively, and this with only one single beacon node. Moreover, utilizing the estimated variances of the multipath parameters proved to enhance the location estimation significantly compared to only utilizing their estimated mean values

Stochastic Multipath Model for the In-Room Radio Channel based on Room Electromagnetics

We propose a stochastic multipath model for the received signal for the case where the transmitter and receiver, both with directive antennas, are situated in the same rectangular room. This scenario is known to produce channel impulse responses with a gradual specular-to-diffused transition in delay. Mirror source theory predicts the arrival rate to be quadratic in delay, inversely proportional to room volume and proportional to the product of the antenna beam coverage fractions. We approximate the mirror source positions by a homogeneous spatial Poisson point process and their gain as complex random variables with the same second moment. The multipath delays in the resulting model form an inhomogeneous Poisson point process which enables derivation of the characteristic functional, power/kurtosis delay spectra, and the distribution of order statistics of the arrival delays in closed form. We find that the proposed model matches the mirror source model well in terms of power delay spectrum, kurtosis delay spectrum, order statistics, and prediction of mean delay and rms delay spread. The constant rate model, assumed in e.g. the Saleh-Valenzuela model, is unable to reproduce the same effects.Comment: 14 pages, Manuscript Submitted to IEEE Transaction on Antennas and Propagatio