TwSense: Highly Robust Through-the-Wall Human Detection Method Based on COTS Wi-Fi Device

Abstract

With the popularization of Wi-Fi router devices, the application of device-free sensing has garnered significant attention due to its potential to make our lives more convenient. Wi-Fi signal-based through-the-wall human detection offers practical applications, such as emergency rescue and elderly monitoring. However, the accuracy of through-the-wall human detection is hindered by signal attenuation caused by wall materials and multiple propagation paths of interference. Therefore, through-the-wall human detection presents a substantial challenge. In this paper, we proposed a highly robust through-the-wall human detection method based on a commercial Wi-Fi device (TwSense). To mitigate interference from wall materials and other environmental factors, we employed the robust principal component analysis (OR-PCA) method to extract the target signal of Channel State Information (CSI). Subsequently, we segmented the action-induced Doppler shift feature image using the K-means clustering method. The features of the images were extracted using the Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) algorithm. Finally, these features were fed into an SVM classifier (G-SVM) optimized by a grid search algorithm for action classification and recognition, thereby enhancing human detection accuracy. We evaluated the robustness of the entire system. The experimental results demonstrated that TwSense achieved the highest accuracy of 96%.

Keywords

• Wi-Fi
• through-the-wall
• human detection
• channel state information
• device-free