Robustness evaluation of positioning scheme using electrode array for sheet medium communication sensor network

The sheet medium communication sensor network (SMCSN) is a novel physical form of communication that utilizes the surface as a communication medium to provide both data and power transmission services to the sensor node placed atop it. To enable SMCSN to detect the position of sensor devices on the sheet medium, we developed a simple and highly accurate position identifying method that maps phase differences measured at electrode array corresponding to a pilot signal sent by a sensor node. When however an object other than a sensor node is placed on the sheet medium, it may have an influence on position estimation. In this paper, we thus evaluate the robustness of our proposed positioning scheme by performing the actual position measurement in which extraneous objects such as plastic, copper, water and aluminium, are put on the sheet medium. The experimental results reveal that the position estimation accuracy is slightly decreased in the case that extraneous objects are put on the sheet medium compared to the case of not placing extraneous objects as the interference.