Frequency-Scanned Active Monopulse Radar based on Bluetooth Low Energy Devices using an Array of Two Planar Leaky-Wave Antennas

A novel technique for angular location of mobile devices, with a wide field of view (FoV) and low cost is presented in this work. The technique is based on the use of the three Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) advertising channels, which are located at the frequencies 2.402 GHz, 2.426 GHz and 2.48 GHz, and the received power information included in the RSSI field of the BLE packets. With the use of an array of two planar and passive leaky-wave antennas (LWA), with two ports each (a total of four ports), due to their inherent frequency scanning, 12 directive beams can be synthesized (one for each frequency channel and port of the array), with different pointing angles and overlapping to obtain different monopulse functions combining information from each port and channel, which complement each other to cover a FoV in the wide angular range [-60°, +60°]. Analog and digital measurements are presented to show the viability and limitations of the technique.