GHz Prism: Frequency-Scanned Antennas to Improve Localization with Separate-Channel Fingerprinting

We propose the application of frequency-scanning leaky-wave antennas to improve the performance of separate-channel fingerprinting techniques used for indoor localization. This paper reports initial evaluations conducted with microstrip leaky-wave antennas (LWA) and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacons. The LWA is designed to direct the three BLE advertising channels towards different angular sectors. As a result, it is demonstrated an increase of the spatial diversity of the separate-channel radiomaps. This significantly improves the location estimation accuracy by 30%, if compared to separate-channel BLE beacons using conventional antennas.