Leveraging Acoustic AoA to Enhance mmWave Beam Search-based Blockage Prediction: An Experimental Study

This paper proposes a novel device-free sensing framework, integrative heterogeneous wave sensing (IHWS). IHWS leverages mmWave angular power profile obtained through beam search and acoustic waves to facilitate wireless sensing focused primarily on blockage prediction in the realm of 6G communication networks. For reliable mmWave communication in realistic environments, mmWave can also serve as a sensing tool for identifying the direction of moving obstacles, such as vehicles, which could potentially cause link blockage. However, the effectiveness of mmWave device-free sensing is initially constrained by the requirement that the target at least has line-of-sight (LOS) to both the base station and user equipment. To mitigate this constraint, we propose an IHWS framework that utilizes motion-induced sound to capture the movement of obstacles and determine their angle of arrival (AoA), thereby enhancing the capabilities of mmWave sensing techniques. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that it is possible to achieve directional localization of the target even outside the LOS region of user equipment and to predict the received power. Moreover, it is confirmed that the directional localization accuracy improves by around 24%, specially when the LOS between the target and user equipment is not necessarily guaranteed.