Reaching the next level of indoor human presence detection: An RF based solution

Abstract

The presence of a human in the vicinity of radio transceivers results in radio signal strength variations at the receiver's input. Therefore, human presence in an indoor environment can be recognized by analyzing and quantifying irregularities in the radio signature. In order to quantify the information in terms of human presence, we present a novel human presence detection method based on information entropy extracted from a sequence of received signal strength samples. As opposed to existing smart home solutions that incorporate a complex set of sensors for human detection, the proposed method is solely based on radio irregularity phenomenon, without modifying the original environment. An additional level of sensor intelligence is introduced without sensors and installation costs, or specific training procedures for end-consumers. © 2013 IEEE.