Towards simulating multipath interference at detectors: a tool for validating location fingerprinting methods

• NCJ Number: 305716
• Author(s): Daniel Rayborn; Logan Smith; Surya Kodipaka; Nicholas Smith; Bo Tang; John E. Ball; Maxwell Young
• Date Published: April 2020
• Grant Number(s): 2018-75-CX-K002
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Award: RF Fingerprinting for Contraband Wireless Devices Identification, Detection and Tracking in Correctional Facilities.

Annotation

This presentation describes preliminary efforts to design and test a MATLAB-based simulation tool for wireless propagation that addresses challenges of location fingerprinting in indoor settings with complex architectures.

Abstract

The authors report on their preliminary research efforts to design and test a MATLAB-based simulation tool for wireless propagation, building on well-known way-tracing techniques while innovating through an algorithm designed to obtain a large subset of rays that intersect a detector along with the angle of arrival (AoA), time of arrival (ToA), signal amplitude, and phase for each ray. Through this project, the authors seek to validate new approaches for location fingerprinting (LF) by simulating those attributes for the subset of signals that intersect detectors, noting that determining whether an LF approach is promising may not require tracing all rays that impact the detector. The researchers employed their tool in conjunction with a neural network-based method for LF, demonstrating the intended use case for their simulation tool.