CAREER: Wide Area Wireless Sensing: Theories and Applications

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。传感器在我们的日常生活中无处不在。它们嵌入到智能手机、可穿戴设备、游戏设备、医疗设备和汽车等各种系统中。无线传感是一个令人振奋的新研究领域，它利用现有的无线信号代替传统的传感器来感知人类和周围环境，使老年护理、人机交互、环境监测和灾难应对等多个学科受益。无线传感的无接触和无传感器特性使其在流行病和灾难幸存者搜索等具有挑战性的场景中特别具有吸引力。该项目旨在为远程广域无线传感奠定理论基础，并利用LORA信号实现灾难幸存者传感、湿度传感和气体泄漏检测等新应用。特别是，该项目将为揭示远程无线传感的基本原理和指导无线传感系统的设计奠定理论基础。该项目还旨在推动广域无线传感在范围、精度和稳健性方面的性能界限，以实现以前不可能实现的新应用。该项目包括几项主要研究工作：(I)开发一个通用模型来量化远程传感的性能，分析影响性能的因素，并提出改善传感性能和处理干扰的信号处理方案；(Ii)研究LORA传感中强二次反射的影响，并利用无人机的机动性进一步扩大传感覆盖范围；(Iii)通过远程穿壁呼吸传感，即使昏迷也能检测到幸存者；以及(Iv)通过只部署一对LORA收发器而无需任何额外传感器来实现远程湿度传感和气体泄漏检测。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Sensors are omnipresent in our everyday lives. They are embedded in a diverse range of systems such as smartphones, wearables, gaming devices, medical equipment and automobiles. Wireless sensing is an exciting new research area which utilizes existing wireless signals instead of conventional sensors for sensing human beings and the surrounding environment, benefiting a large spectrum of disciplines including elderly care, human–computer interaction, environment monitoring, and disaster response. The contact-free and sensor-free nature of wireless sensing makes it particularly appealing in challenging scenarios such as pandemic and disaster survivor search. This project aims to lay the theoretical foundations for long-range wide-area wireless sensing and to use LoRa signals to realize new applications such as disaster survivor sensing, humidity sensing and gas leakage detection. In particular, this project will build the theoretical foundations to uncover the underlying principles of long-range wireless sensing and to guide the design of wireless sensing systems. This project also aims at pushing the performance boundaries of wide-area wireless sensing in terms of range, accuracy, and robustness to enable new applications which were not possible previously. The project comprises several major research thrusts: (i) Develop a general model to quantify the performance of long-range sensing, analyze factors affecting the performance, and propose signal processing schemes to improve sensing performance and deal with interference; (ii) Study the effect of strong secondary reflection in LoRa sensing and leverage the mobility of drones to further increase the sensing coverage; (iii) Enable detection of survivors even in a coma through long-range through-wall respiration sensing; and (iv) Achieve long-range humidity sensing and gas leakage detection by deploying just one LoRa transceiver pair without any additional sensors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.