Enhancing wireless performance using reflectors

TLDR: OptRe is proposed which optimally places metallic reflectors — providing a highly reflective surface that can reflect impinging signals almost 100% — in indoor environments to reduce the reflection loss and enhance wireless transmissions.

Abstract: Signal decay is the fundamental problem of wireless communications, especially in an indoor environment where line-of-sight (LOS) paths for signal propagation are often blocked and various indoor objects exacerbate signal fading. There are three reasons for signal decay: long transmission distance, signal penetration, and reflection. In this paper, we propose OptRe which optimally places metallic reflectors — providing a highly reflective surface that can reflect impinging signals almost 100% — in indoor environments to reduce the reflection loss and enhance wireless transmissions. It enhances both WiFi signal and low-power IoT devices without changing their configurations or network protocols. To enable OptRe, we first develop an empirical signal propagation model that can accurately estimate the signal strength and adapt itself to the reflectors' location. Using micro-benchmarks, our empirical signal propagation model is shown to be more accurate than the other existing path loss models. We also optimally place reflectors to maximize the worst-case signal coverage within the target indoor areas. Our extensive experimental evaluation results have shown OptRe to enhance signal strength for different types of wireless signals by almost 2x.