The WiFi-STAR (WiFi based STand Alone Radar for indoor human activity monitoring) project aims to derive and propose innovative strategies for human activity monitoring in indoor environments by exploiting low-complexity and non-coherent radar techniques based on WiFi transmission for stand-alone sensors.
Thanks to the proliferation of WiFi devices and related applications, nowadays the availability of WiFi signals is very high in almost all private and public buildings such as houses, offices, stations, airports etc. Furthermore, there is an increasing demand for a capability to detect, accurately locate, and possibly recognize activities performed by a human using strategies that are devise-free and thus do not require any cooperation from the person being monitored nor use privacy-invasive technologies such as cameras. Moreover, in order to achieve a wide use of these sensors, it is important that each of them is small, light, low-cost and easy to install.
Based on these objectives and motivations, this project aims at tackling this issue, devising operative solutions that are based on WiFi radar technology but do not rely on any accurate synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver as well as any phase information extraction from the data. In order words, we aim at using effective non-coherent solutions that look for the presence of a target not relying on prior knowledge on the transmitted waveform but instead based on the amplitude modulation induced by the target motion on the received signal when observed across time.
The derivation and extensive validation of such strategies, against both simulated and real data collected in ad hoc acquisition campaigns, could pave the way for a distributed use of a WiFi-based network of stand-alone sensors. This could enable a complete monitoring of indoor environments, both for detecting the presence of unauthorized intruders and accurately localizing them but also for smart-home or e-healthcare applications.
With reference to the project objectives described in the previous section, the innovative value of the proposed research can be demonstrated
- by the development of enabling methodologies for sensors that could be used in private and public indoor environments. In this area there is a considerable interest, even at the industrial level, since it is an expanding market for which it is still undergoing a process of standardization both in terms of sensors and processing techniques;
- from the possibility, deriving from the not lacking necessity of a faithful copy of the transmitted signal, to operate in stand-alone way and therefore not to require particular infrastructures.
- from the possibility of using distributed sensors also, by virtue of their characteristic of autonomy and then their consequent low cost of implementation. This would allow to try a localization of the target, subsequent to the detection of its presence.
- the realization of an experimental sensor, which would allow to have a testbed for the validation and demonstration of the processing techniques implemented.
From an application point of view, the development of this sensor would allow to enhance and increase the research results and the know-how that the research group when both proponents work has developed in recent years. In fact, it would allow the demonstration of the potential of a stand-alone radar sensor based on WiFi transmissions, which represents a significant innovation compared to the state of the art both from the scientific and technological point of view. The innovative value of the passive sensor and the related data processing techniques, object of the proposal, opens the way for an exploitation of the results of scientific research also in terms of
- publication of articles in renowned scientific journals in the field;
- presentation of contributions to national and international congresses and conferences;
- publicity through dedicated web pages.