Path to Diversity: A Primer on ISAC-izing Commodity Wi-Fi for Practical Deployments

TL;DR

This paper provides a bottom-up analysis of Wi-Fi physical-layer advancements, organizing them into four diversity dimensions to enable practical ISAC deployments and improve sensing performance.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic framework based on physical-layer diversity dimensions to guide the integration of sensing capabilities into commodity Wi-Fi systems.

Findings

Four orthogonal diversity dimensions enable better sensing in Wi-Fi: temporal, frequency, link, spatial.

The framework bridges physical-layer capabilities with sensing challenges, aiding standardization.

Guides practical deployment of Wi-Fi-based sensing for next-generation wireless networks.

Abstract

Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) has emerged as a key paradigm in next-generation wireless networks. While the ubiquity and low cost of commodity Wi-Fi make it an ideal platform for wide-scale sensing, it is the continuous evolution of Wi-Fi standards-towards higher frequency bands, wider bandwidths, and larger antenna arrays-that fundamentally unlocks the physical resources required for high-performance ISAC. To structure this rapidly expanding field, numerous surveys have appeared. However, prevailing literature predominantly adopts a top-down perspective, emphasizing upper-layer applications or deep learning models while treating the physical layer as an opaque abstraction. Consequently, these works often fail to touch the bottom layer of signal formation and lack technical guidance on overcoming the physical barriers that constrain sensing performance. To bridge this gap, this tutorial takes a bottom-up approach, systematically analyzing the sensing gains brought by Wi-Fi advancements through the lens of physical-layer diversity. We organize the framework around four orthogonal dimensions: i) Temporal Diversity addresses synchronization gaps to enable absolute ranging; ii) Frequency Diversity expands the effective bandwidth to sharpen range resolution; iii) Link Diversity leverages distributed topologies and digital feedback to achieve ubiquitous observability; and iv) Spatial Diversity utilizes multi-antenna arrays to combine passive angular discrimination with active directional control. Collectively, these orthogonal dimensions resolve fundamental ambiguities in time, range, and space, bridging physical capabilities with challenging sensing diversities. By synthesizing these dimensions, this tutorial provides a comprehensive guide for "ISAC-izing" commodity Wi-Fi, paving the way for future standardization and robust deployment.