Title: An acquisition scheme for communications in multi-antenna sensor networks with low signal to noise ratio

Authors: Joaquín Aldunate; Christian Oberli

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, 7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, 7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile

Abstract: Recent results show that multiple antenna communications can improve the energy efficiency of wireless communications. These techniques are thus attractive for use in wireless sensor networks. In particular, diversity techniques can be used to improve the acquisition of wireless links, especially for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations. This paper presents an acquisition scheme well suited for wireless sensor networks such as low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN) with multiple antenna sensor nodes. The scheme exploits a differentially encoded preamble and receive diversity in order to detect signals at very low SNR without requiring channel state information. We show that it achieves a better trade-off between the probability of acquisition false alarm and failed acquisition than single-antenna communications. Therefore, it enables networks with larger node separation at given transmission power, such as in LPWANs. The scheme's performance is thoroughly analysed theoretically and verified by simulations.

Keywords: multi-antenna; wireless sensor networks; acquisition scheme; LPWAN; low-power wide-area networks; low signal to noise ratio; preamble sequence; diversity; differential coding; channel state information; signal detection.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2018.093973

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2018 Vol.27 No.4, pp.259 - 267

Received: 13 Oct 2016
Accepted: 19 Oct 2017
Published online: 10 Aug 2018 *

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