Single-Antenna Device-to-Device Localization in Smart Environments With Backscatter

Abstract

A long-standing vision of indoor localization is to eliminate infrastructure and deployment costs. Recent innovations make it possible to enable device-to-device (D2D) localization while requiring multiple antennas for the systems. We ask the following question: can we localize the more generally used single-antenna devices (e.g., IoT) using another single-antenna device (e.g., smartphone or smartwatch) in a smart environment where low-cost backscatter tags are widely deployed on walls or smart objects? In this article, we present TagLoc, a lightweight system that enables D2D localization without relying on large antenna arrays. Our observation is that the reflected signals from the ambient smart environment can be exploited to eliminate the requirement of bulky antenna arrays that are unachievable for the simple-designed IoT devices. Specifically, TagLoc creates multiple direction signatures using backscatter arrays in smart environments. Then, the receiver can accurately estimate the direction signatures from the transmitter to the arrays and then localize the target by cooperating all tag arrays. We prototype TagLoc using two single-antenna Intel NUCs with off-the-shelf Intel 5300 WiFi cards and customized backscatter tags. The results show TagLoc can achieve robust performance in a real indoor environment with a median localization error of 0.82 m.