Improving the Robustness of 60 GHz Indoor Connectivity by Deployment of Mirrors

摘要

60GHz links are highly susceptible to propagation and penetration loss. When blockages occur, an efficient approach to maintain the network connectivity is to switch the beam to the candidate path provided by a relay or a physical reflector. In this study, we propose to deploy mirrors in typical indoor environment as the virtual relay to improve the quality and robustness of the 60GHz links. By investigating the link outage probability through simulations in a variety of mirror layouts, we draw three criteria for the deployment of mirrors, i.e. shortest path, multi-mirror and on walls. Furthermore, a method for indoor mirror deployment is proposed based on shortest path first. Accordingly, the optimal mirror layout can be obtained as long as the expected coverage is given. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme is remarkably effective in improving the robustness of link connectivity at 60GHz.