An autonomous system for high-resolution mapping of indoor wireless coverage

This paper describes an autonomous robotic system for characterizing and mapping indoor wireless coverage. Most current-generation systems for measuring wireless coverage require human testers to walk around a prescribed path and manually record their position. This time-consuming process limits measurement resolution and its accuracy is subject to human error. As indoor coverage solutions become more widespread, techniques for efficiently measuring coverage quality are growing in importance. The autonomous robotic system described automatically explores an area and accurately determines its position relative to the building map. Handset logging equipment onboard the robot determines physical layer data rates and signal quality as measured by metrics such as SNR, RSRP, and CQI. Following the robotic test, postprocessing software overlays the test metrics on the building map to create significantly higher resolution coverage maps than have been previously possible. This system allows for verification of wireless coverage against service level agreements, and for repetitive testing of in-development indoor solutions.