Measuring accurate Angle of Arrival of weak LoRa signals for Indoor Positionning

• Main Authors: Zeaiter, Hussein, Spies, Francois, Baala, Oumaya, Val, Thierry
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Angle of Arrival (AoA); Autocorrelation; Autocorrelation function (ACF); Fast Fourier Transform (FFT); Logic gates; Long-Range (LoRa); Negative SNR; peak detection; Position measurement; Power transmission; Software; Software algorithms; Software Defined Radio (SDR); Time measurement
• ISSN: 2471-917X
• DOI: 10.1109/IPIN54987.2022.9918114

In this paper, we propose an Autocorrelation method for measuring the angle of arrival (AoA) of a weak LoRa signal. A weak LoRa signal has a negative SNR down to −20 dB. The objective is to detect a LoRa signal that operates at low transmission power (TX). Operating at low transmission power (TX) reduces power consumption and extends the battery life of LoRa devices. Besides, the transmission of weak signals strengthens the radio communication protocol, preventing an enemy device from accessing the location coordinates. The detecting algorithm consists of finding Autocorrelation peaks of the LoRa signal. We show that Autocorrelation peaks decrease when the signal is buried in the noise. However, using a large number of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) will increase the Autocorrelation peaks and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Once the peak of the LoRa signal is detected under the noise, the algorithm will calculate the AoA. All of the proposed algorithms are implemented using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), Software Defined Radio (SDR) receiver with the help of GNU Radio software. We, therefore, believe that our Autocorrelation method can detect the LoRa signal accurately and measure the AoA at very low SNR in real_ time being usable for indoor positionning.