Scatterer Localization Using Multi-Bounce Paths

Abstract: Indoor sensing is challenging because of the multi-bounce effect, spherical wavefront, and spatial nonstationarity (SNS) of the near-field effect. This paper addresses radio-based environment sensing considering these issues. Specifically, graph theory (GT) is used to model the multi-bounce propagation of the near field. In this manner, indoor reflectors/scatterers are modeled as vertices in a propagation graph, the multi-bounce paths are modeled by the edges linking the vertices. Besides, the coupled multipath parameters in the near field, i.e., range and angles, are denoted directly by the coordinates of vertices. Then, the space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm is adapted to the proposed Graph theory-based dictionary-aided Multi-bounce SAGE (GM-SAGE), where the searching parameters including range and angle of departure/arrival (AoD/AoA) are transformed to the coordinates of scatterers in the graph. The proposed algorithm is validated through measurement-calibrated ray tracing (RT) in a complex indoor office. The results demonstrate that the proposed GM-SAGE can deal with multi-bounce channels.