Articolo in rivista, 2018, ENG, 10.1016/j.adhoc.2018.03.011

Localising crowds through Wi-Fi probes

Potortì F.; Crivello A.; Girolami M.; Barsocchi P.; Traficante E.

CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy; CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy-DIISM Department of the University of Siena, Italy; CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy; CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy; Cloud4Wi, Pisa, Italy

Most of us carry mobile devices that routinely disseminate radio messages, as is the case with Wi-Fi scanning and Bluetooth beaconing. We investigate whether it is possible to examine these digital crumbs and have them reveal useful insight on the presence of people in indoor locations, as the literature lacks any answers on this topic. Wi-Fi probes are generated sparsely and often anonymised, which hinders the possibility of using them for targeted localisation or tracking. However, by experimenting in three different indoor environments, we demonstrate for the first time that it is possible to extract from them some positioning information. Possible applications include identifying frequented regions where many people are gathered together. In the described experimentation with sniffing devices we adopted fingerprinting interpolation, which requires no survey phase and automatically adapts to changes in the environment. The same process can be carried out using the Wi-Fi access points already installed in the environment, thus allowing for operation free of installation, surveying and maintenance.

Ad hoc networks 75-76 , pp. 87–97

Keywords

Passive indoor localisation, Survey-free fingerprinting, Wi-Fi probe eavesdropping

CNR authors

Crivello Antonino, Potorti Francesco, Barsocchi Paolo, Girolami Michele

CNR institutes

ISTI – Istituto di scienza e tecnologie dell'informazione "Alessandro Faedo"

ID: 385962

Year: 2018

Type: Articolo in rivista

Creation: 2018-04-03 16:51:41.000

Last update: 2021-12-17 17:24:44.000

External IDs

CNR OAI-PMH: oai:it.cnr:prodotti:385962

DOI: 10.1016/j.adhoc.2018.03.011

Scopus: 2-s2.0-85045060517

ISI Web of Science (WOS): 000433268400006