Exposing the CSI: A Systematic Investigation of CSI-based Wi-Fi Sensing Capabilities and Limitations
Marco Cominelli, Francesco Gringoli, Francesco Restuccia

TL;DR
This paper investigates how modern Wi-Fi 6 features affect CSI-based sensing, providing a comprehensive dataset and analysis to guide future research and standardization efforts in this rapidly evolving field.
Contribution
It offers the first extensive Wi-Fi 6 CSI dataset, analyzes the impact of Wi-Fi 6 features on sensing, and highlights the need for standardization in Wi-Fi sensing research.
Findings
MIMO and spectral resolution improve sensing more than bandwidth.
Current Wi-Fi sensing lacks standardization and environment independence.
The released dataset facilitates future benchmarking and research.
Abstract
Thanks to the ubiquitous deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots, channel state information (CSI)-based Wi-Fi sensing can unleash game-changing applications in many fields, such as healthcare, security, and entertainment. However, despite one decade of active research on Wi-Fi sensing, most existing work only considers legacy IEEE 802.11n devices, often in particular and strictly-controlled environments. Worse yet, there is a fundamental lack of understanding of the impact on CSI-based sensing of modern Wi-Fi features, such as 160-MHz bandwidth, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions, and increased spectral resolution in IEEE 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6). This work aims to shed light on the impact of Wi-Fi 6 features on the sensing performance and to create a benchmark for future research on Wi-Fi sensing. To this end, we perform an extensive CSI data collection campaign involving 3…
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Taxonomy
TopicsIndoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies · Wireless Networks and Protocols · Millimeter-Wave Propagation and Modeling
