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Modeling the Effect of Human Body on ToA Ranging Using Ray Theory

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Abstract

In line-of-sight (LoS) conditions, the accuracy of time-of-arrival (ToA) based localization has proven to be superior to the received-signal-strength (RSS) and the angle-of-arrival (AoA) localization techniques. The accuracy of TOA ranging is limited to unexpected ranging errors caused by the human body obstructing the direct path (DP) between a transmitter and a receiver. Validated analysis of this effect is a challenging problem, and this paper proposes an analytical Uniform Geometrical Theory of Diffraction (UTD) approach, based on a hybrid applicability of conductor cylinder, wedge, and screen models, to analyze behavior of first path in proximity of human body that is in angular motion. The model introduced can cover for a variety of antenna positioning in respect to human body by addressing creeping waves for on-body, far-field and near-field waves for off-body propagations. Result of analytically calculated ToA and path-loss for shortest diffracted path is validated with UWB measurements conducted by a vector network analyzer sweeping 3–5 GHz of bandwidth. The analytical approach proposes an enhancement to existing RT algorithm to include the effect of human body.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 01609-2280, USA

    Fardad Askarzadeh, Kaveh Pahlavan, Yishuang Geng, Sergey N. Makarov & Umair Khan

  2. Broadcom Corporation, Santa Clara, CA, USA

    Yunxing Ye

Authors
  1. Fardad Askarzadeh
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  2. Kaveh Pahlavan
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  3. Yishuang Geng
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  4. Sergey N. Makarov
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  5. Yunxing Ye
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  6. Umair Khan
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Correspondence to Fardad Askarzadeh.

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Askarzadeh, F., Pahlavan, K., Geng, Y. et al. Modeling the Effect of Human Body on ToA Ranging Using Ray Theory. Int J Wireless Inf Networks 24, 140–152 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-017-0336-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-017-0336-5

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