High resolution WLAN indoor channel parameter estimation and measurements for communication and positioning applications at 2.4, 5.2 and 5.8 GHz

In this paper a high resolution modeling of WLAN indoor channels is presented. The super resolution technique matrix pencil (MP) algorithm is applied to the complex frequency response to resolve close multipath components and to build a model for the WLAN indoor channel. It is shown that the proposed technique estimates the indoor channel response with a reasonable high resolution. This modeling tool allows predicting many wireless channel parameters that are used for channel characterization and necessary for an efficient design of an indoor WLAN. The paper also presents channel measurements in indoor environments at various frequencies, namely 2.4 GHz (IEEE 802.11b and g), 5.2 GHz (IEEE 802.11a) and 5.8 GHz (IEEE 802.11a) using a wide band channel sounder. The application of the matrix pencil algorithm for estimating the time of arrival (TOA) of shortest path in indoor positioning application is presented as well.