IEEE 802.11bf DMG Sensing: Enabling High-Resolution mmWave Wi-Fi Sensing

Published

January 16, 2023

Author(s)

Steve Blandino, Tanguy Ropitault, Anirudha Sahoo, Nada T. Golmie

Abstract

IEEE 802.11bf amendment is defining the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) sensing procedure, which supports sensing in license-exempt frequency bands below 7 GHz and above 40GHz. In this paper, we examine WLAN sensing in the millimeter wave band, i.e., \acDMG} sensing. We first provide an introduction to the principle of sensing and the modifications added by IEEE 802.11bf amendment to the IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) to enable Wi-Fi sensing. As IEEE 802.11bf is still in its infancy, however, its achievable performance and its effect on communications are still not clear. We thus develop a first open-source framework, allowing the evaluation of IEEE 802.11bf sensing accuracy. We quantify the performance of IEEE 802.11bf in terms of velocity and angle estimate accuracy, and we estimate the impact of the sensing procedure overhead on the communication link. Results show that IEEE 802.11bf provides a wide range of flexibility to accommodate different sensing applications. The root mean square error (RMSE) of velocity can be adapted depending on the use case and we report a velocity accuracy in the interval 0.1 m/s-0.4 m/s. Similarly, the RMSE of the angle estimated can be adapted with the antenna array configuration and we measure an error between 1 and 8 degrees. The overhead introduced by sensing is kept under control as in the simulated scenarios the overhead is always below 5.5\% of the symbol rate of the system.

Citation

IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology

Pub Type

Journals

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Citation

Blandino, S. , Ropitault, T. , Sahoo, A. and Golmie, N. (2023), IEEE 802.11bf DMG Sensing: Enabling High-Resolution mmWave Wi-Fi Sensing, IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935993 (Accessed November 21, 2024)