Seamless WiFi Sensing

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In WiFi sensing, wireless signals transmitted by WiFi devices, such as smartphones, are exploited to infer information about surrounding environments. The human body changes wireless signals by absorbing, reflecting, and scattering them. For instance, movements of people in the vicinity of WiFi devices change WiFi signals. Monitoring these changes allows WiFi sensing techniques to infer different types of information such as localization, gesture recognition, and breathing rate estimation. WiFi sensing has the potential to revolutionize the smart home industry by eliminating the need for numerous Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and exploiting WiFi signals instead. As a result, WiFi sensing can provide cost effective and easy-to-install IoT solutions. Unfortunately, existing WiFi sensing technologies suffer from deployment and privacy issues. These technologies require extensive software modifications on WiFi devices which is typically difficult or even impossible, making the deployment of existing technologies challenging. Moreover, since wireless signals pass through walls, WiFi sensing techniques pose a significant threat to privacy. For instance, these techniques can be used by an attacker to infer information from inside a house by monitoring WiFi signals outside the house. The long-term goal of my research program is enabling seamless WiFi sensing which integrates with existing WiFi networks without any modifications to WiFi devices while preserving the privacy of users. The first objective of this proposal is room-level occupancy detection using WiFi sensing to eliminate the need for many motion sensors in smart home applications. Occupancy detection is one of important applications of seamless WiFi sensing envisioned in the long-term goal of my research program. I intend to design and implement a seamless room-level occupancy detection system that does not require software modifications on WiFi devices. This system detects if a room in a home or office is occupied or not just by utilizing existing WiFi signals. Since, this system does not require dedicated motion sensors, it significantly reduces the cost of deploying many IoT solutions. The second objective of this proposal is focused on privacy implications of seamless WiFi sensing. I intend to characterize to what extent an attacker can infer occupancy information and estimate breathing rate from outside a house. In addition, I will study how to prevent an attacker from obtaining such information. Focusing on occupancy and breathing rate information will be an important step towards protecting all privacy-sensitive information envisioned in the long-term goals. Seamless WiFi sensing will have immense social and economical impacts by providing low-cost and privacy-preserving IoT solutions ranging from motion and occupancy detection to vital signs monitoring.