On the Impact of the Antenna Radiation Patterns in Passive Radio Sensing

Electromagnetic (EM) body models based on the scalar diffraction theory allow for predicting the impact of subject motions on the radio propagation channel without requiring a time-consuming full-wave approach. On the other hand, they are less effective in complex environments characterized by significant multipath effects. Recently, emerging radio sensing applications have proposed the adoption of smart antennas with nonisotropic radiation characteristics to improve coverage. This letter investigates the impact of antenna radiation patterns in passive radio sensing applications. Adaptations of diffraction-based EM models are proposed to account for antenna nonuniform angular filtering. Next, we quantify experimentally the impact of diffraction and multipath disturbance components on radio sensing accuracy in environments with smart antennas.