Follow @grandma: Long-term device-free localization for residential monitoring

Abstract

Device-free localization (DFL) enables localizing people by monitoring the changes in the radio frequency (RF) attenuation field of an area where a wireless network is deployed. Notably, this technology does not require people to participate in the localization effort by carrying any electronic device. This paper presents a DFL system for long-term residential monitoring. Due to the daily activities carried out by the people being monitored, the radio signals' propagation patterns change continuously. This would make a system relying only on an initial calibration of the radio environment highly inaccurate in the long run. In this paper, we use an on-line recalibration method that allows the system to adapt to the changes in the radio environment, and then provide accurate position estimates in the long run. A finite-state machine (FSM) defines when the person is located at specific areas-of-interest (AoI) inside the house (e.g. kitchen, bathroom, bed, etc.). Moreover, each time a state transition is triggered, the system tweets the new AoI in a Twitter account. The FSM allows extracting higher level information about the daily routine of the person being monitored, enabling interested parties (e.g. caretakers, relatives) to check that everything is proceeding normally in his life. In the long-term experiment carried out in a real domestic environment, the system was able to accurately and reliably localize the person during his daily activities.