Robust Device-Free mmWave Sensing With Specular Reflection Interference Mitigation

Abstract

Device-Free mmWave Sensing (DFWS) could sense target state by analyzing how target activities influence the surrounding mmWave signals. It has emerged as a promising sensing technology. However, when employing DFWS indoors, specular reflection interference arises due to the specular reflectors. This interference often induces ghost targets, impacting the accurate estimation of the number and position of targets, resulting in degradation in sensing performance. To tackle this issue, we delve into the generation mechanism of specular reflection interference and analyze its multi-domain characteristics. Through exploration, we discern its temporal sparsity, spatial symmetry or collinearity, and frequency correlation characteristics, and propose four metrics to measure them, accordingly. Specifically, we propose a temporal characteristic quantitative evaluation metric based on identity matching, spatial symmetry and collinearity quantitative evaluation metrics based on geometric analysis, and a frequency correlation quantitative evaluation metric based on Doppler velocity correction, respectively. Based on these metrics, we design a novel Specular Reflection Interference Mitigation (SRIM) method and develop a robust SRIM-DFWS prototype system based on a 60 GHz mmWave radar to validate our proposed method. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method could achieve accurate and effective mitigation of specular reflection interference in device-free target tracking.