Scoping environment for robust 60 GHz link deployment

Sanjib Sur, Xinyu Zhang

Abstract: Blockage by human body is a severe challenge to enabling robust 60 GHz directional links. Beam-steering may overcome this problem by electronically steering the signals, thus creating detour paths. However, effectiveness of beam-steering depends on the link's deployment location and the reflection characteristics of surrounding environment. An arbitrarily deployed link may suffer from complete black-out during human blockage. In this paper, we propose a new technique called BeamScope, that predicts the best possible deployment location in an indoor environment, without any explicit war-driving. BeamScope first characterizes the environment using sparse measurement from randomly deployed reference locations. It then predicts the link quality in unobserved locations to suggest a possible redeployment. More specifically, BeamScope characterizes the environment through a novel model that deems ambient reflectors as diffusive mirrors. It can extrapolate the reflectivity and geometrical parameters of the mirrors. Then, it predicts link quality by tracing the signal rays along their line-of-sight and reflecting paths. We have conducted preliminary evaluation of BeamScope on a 60 GHz software-radio testbed and a raytracing simulator. The results show promising accuracy in identifying the best possible locations for 60 GHz link to achieve robust connectivity.