MonoPHY: Mono-stream-based device-free WLAN localization via physical layer information

Device-free (DF) indoor localization has grasped great attention recently as a value-added service to the already installed WiFi infrastructure as it allows the tracking of entities that do not carry any devices nor participate actively in the localization process. Current approaches, however, require a relatively large number of wireless streams, i.e. transmitter-receiver pairs, which is not available in many typical scenarios, such as home monitoring. In this paper, we introduce MonoPHY as an accurate mono-stream device-free WLAN localization system. MonoPHY leverages the physical layer information of WiFi networks supported by the IEEE 802.11n standard to provide accurate DF localization with only one stream. In particular, MonoPHY leverages both the low-level Channel State Information and the MIMO information to capture the human effect on signal strength. Experimental evaluation in a typical apartment, with a side-by-side comparison with the state-of-the-art, shows that MonoPHY can achieve an accuracy of 1.36m. This corresponds to at least 48% enhancement in median distance error over the state-of-the-art DF localization systems using a single stream only.