3D Self-Motion Tracking Services: Coalescence of mmWave Beam Orientations and Phase Information

Abstract

The profound integration of sensing functionalities is seen as a major step stone towards unleashing the full potential of 6G, yet recent advances in current networks already offer new opportunities for sensing. This is especially true for the mmWave domain which offers a suitable environment for sensing services, e.g. due to the ability to detect and determine the angles of available link opportunities. Whereas previous work devised a fine 3D motion tracking by combining phase measurements along with several co-deployed nodes' links to the mmWave network, this work instead exploits multiple available propagation paths. We observe sub-10 $\mu\mathrm{m}$ 3D motion tracking accuracy for the proposed single user equipment (UE) enhancement, mirroring the conventional multi-UE-based approach performance. However, our detailed error analysis finds that multipath may turn from friend to foe if undesired components are not suppressed sufficiently, as these amplify the effects of phase distortions due to channel noise and hardware imperfections. Our evaluation further yields that the technique is sensitive to erroneous propagation path angle information.