On the Improvement of Positioning Accuracy in Wireless Sensor Network using Smart Antennas

Location awareness wireless sensor network (WSN) plays an important role in fifth generation (5G) and Internet of Things (IoT) communication networks. Standard WSN devices usually employ monopole antenna, which exhibits a very poor performance in indoor multipath scenarios, and this can severely limit their link performance. In contrast to monopoles, smart antennas can steer their main beam towards a desired signal while forming a null in the direction of an interference signal. This would enable reduction on multipath fading effects, while at the same time allowing energy to be directed to where it is required to increase signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This paper presents an assessment on positioning accuracy improvement gained by the incorporation of smart antennas to a location-awareness wireless sensor network in an indoor office environment. Both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios were considered. The results show that the positioning accuracy could be improved by using smart antenna as compared with monopole antenna.