ZTE Communications ›› 2024, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (3): 29-36.DOI: 10.12142/ZTECOM.202403005

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Trajectory Tracking for MmWave Communication Systems via Cooperative Passive Sensing

YU Chao, LYU Bojie, QIU Haoyu, WANG Rui()   

  1. Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518000, China
  • Received:2024-08-20 Online:2024-09-25 Published:2024-09-29
  • About author:YU Chao received his BS degree from Qingdao University of Technology, China in 2019 and ME degree from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China in 2023. He is currently a research assistant with SUSTech. His research interests include integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) and passive sensing.
    LYU Bojie received his BE degree in communication engineering from Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China in 2018, and M.Phil degree (ranked top 2) in information and communication engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China in 2020. He is currently pursuing his PhD degree in mathematics with SUSTech.
    QIU Haoyu received his BE degree from the Southern University of Science and Technology, China in 2023, where he is currently pursuing his ME degree with the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. His research interests include wireless sensing, passive mmWave communication and sensing system and optimization in the WiFi system.
    WANG Rui ( wangr@sustech.edu.cn) received his BS degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2004, and PhD degree in wireless communications from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China in 2008. From 2009 to 2012, he was a senior research engineer with Huawei Technologies, Co., Ltd. Since 2012, he has joined Southern University of Science and Technology, China as an associate professor. He has research experience in both academia and industry. He has authored over 100 papers in top-level IEEE journals and flagship international conferences, especially in the area of wireless radio resource optimization and interference management. He has contributed over 20 US patent applications and over 100 Chinese patent applications (50 of them have been granted).

Abstract:

A cooperative passive sensing framework for millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems is proposed and demonstrated in a scenario with one mobile signal blocker. Specifically, in the uplink communication with at least two transmitters, a cooperative detection method is proposed for the receiver to track the blocker’s trajectory, localize the transmitters and detect the potential link blockage jointly. To facilitate detection, the receiver collects the signal of each transmitter along a line-of-sight (LoS) path and a non-line-of-sight (NLoS) path separately via two narrow-beam phased arrays. The NLoS path involves scattering at the mobile blocker, allowing its identification through the Doppler frequency. By comparing the received signals of both paths, the Doppler frequency and angle-of-arrival (AoA) of the NLoS path can be estimated. To resolve the blocker’s trajectory and the transmitters’ locations, the receiver should continuously track the mobile blocker to accumulate sufficient numbers of the Doppler frequency and AoA versus time observations. Finally, a gradient-descent-based algorithm is proposed for joint detection. With the reconstructed trajectory, the potential link blockage can be predicted. It is demonstrated that the system can achieve decimeter-level localization and trajectory estimation, and predict the blockage time with an error of less than 0.1 s.

Key words: mmWave communications, integrated sensing and communication, trajectory tracking, passive sensing