A Compact Two-Level Sequentially Rotated Circularly Polarized Antenna Array for C

A compact circular polarized antenna array with a convenient gain/bandwidth/dimension trade-off is proposed for applications in the C-band. The design is based on the recursive application of the sequential phase architecture, resulting in a 4 × 4 array of closely packed identical antennas. The 16 antenna elements are disc-based patches operating in modal degeneration, tuned to exhibit a broad while imperfect polarization. Exploiting the compact dimension of the patches and a space-filling design for the feeding network, the entire array is designed to minimize the occupied area. A prototype of the proposed array is fabricated with standard photoetching procedure in a single-layer via less printed board of overall area 80 × 80 mm2. Adequate left-hand polarization is observed over a wide bandwidth, demonstrating a convenient trade-off between bandwidth and axial ratio. Satisfying experimental results validate the proposed design, with a peak gain of 12.6 dB at 6.7 GHz maintained within 3 dB for 1 GHz, a very wide 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 3 GHz, and a 4 dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1.82 GHz, meaning 31% of fractional bandwidth

Introduzione ai Sistemi di Localizzazione Indoor

Introduzione ai Sistemi di Localizzazione Indoor (“Indoor Positioning Systems”) is the second issue of the series “Quaderni del Dottorato di Ricerca in Ingegneria dell'Informazione” ("Issues of the PhD course in Information Engineering”) of the University of Florence, as a didactic support to the PhD course bearing the same name. This issue is designed as an introductory text for those who want to test themselves in the emerging field of locating mobile vehicles in indoor environments, where satellite positioning services are absent or unreliable. Through its four chapters, the text reviews the main localisation methods, the corresponding algorithms, and the error propagation associated with the latter

An improved approach for RSSI-based only calibration-free real-time indoor localization on IEEE 802.11 and 802.15.4 wireless networks

Assuming a reliable and responsive spatial contextualization service is a must-have in IEEE 802.11 and 802.15.4 wireless networks, a suitable approach consists of the implementation of localization capabilities, as an additional application layer to the communication protocol stack. Considering the applicative scenario where satellite-based positioning applications are denied, such as indoor environments, and excluding data packet arrivals time measurements due to lack of time resolution, received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurements, obtained according to IEEE 802.11 and 802.15.4 data access technologies, are the unique data sources suitable for indoor geo-referencing using COTS devices. In the existing literature, many RSSI based localization systems are introduced and experimentally validated, nevertheless they require periodic calibrations and significant information fusion from different sensors that dramatically decrease overall systems reliability and their effective availability. This motivates the work presented in this paper, which introduces an approach for an RSSI-based calibration-free and real-time indoor localization. While switched-beam array-based hardware (compliant with IEEE 802.15.4 router functionality) has already been presented by the author, the focus of this paper is the creation of an algorithmic layer for use with the pre-existing hardware capable to enable full localization and data contextualization over a standard 802.15.4 wireless sensor network using only RSSI information without the need of lengthy offline calibration phase. System validation reports the localization results in a typical indoor site, where the system has shown high accuracy, leading to a sub-metrical overall mean error and an almost 100% site coverage within 1 m localization error