People counting in smart buildings

Abstract

Today almost everyone carries a mobile device. The authors test whether these devices may be used to ascertain the number of people in a building. The number of mobile devices present (number of persons) is determined using methods that capture network packets sent by mobile devices using the 802.11 protocol. The packets are captured using a Wi-Fi scanner, a hardware device that allows information to be gathered from 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac networks. The number of people in a building with an adequate count of Wi-Fi scanners may be determined with a definite probability which, aside from its statistical importance, might also be key in emergency situations in which it is imperative to determine how many people are inside a particular building.