RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners

Unmanned robots are increasingly used around humans in factories, malls, and hotels. As they navigate our space, it is important to ensure that such robots do not collide with people who suddenly appear as they turn a corner. Today, however, there is no practical solution for localizing people aroun...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cao, Peng
Other Authors: Katabi, Dina
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144863
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2014-5015
_version_ 1826210460794355712
author Cao, Peng
author2 Katabi, Dina
author_facet Katabi, Dina
Cao, Peng
author_sort Cao, Peng
collection MIT
description Unmanned robots are increasingly used around humans in factories, malls, and hotels. As they navigate our space, it is important to ensure that such robots do not collide with people who suddenly appear as they turn a corner. Today, however, there is no practical solution for localizing people around corners. Optical solutions try to track hidden people through their visible shadows on the floor or a sidewall, but they can easily fail depending on the ambient light and the environment. More recent work has considered the use of radio frequency (RF) signals to track people and vehicles around street corners. However, past RF-based proposals rely on a simplistic ray-tracing model that fails in practical indoor scenarios. This thesis introduces CornerRadar, an RF-based method that provides accurate around-corner indoor localization. CornerRadar addresses the limitations of the ray-tracing model used in past work. It does so through a novel encoding of how RF signals bounce off walls and occlusions. The encoding, which we call the hint map, is then fed to a neural network along with the radio signals to localize people around corners. Empirical evaluation with people moving around corners in 56 indoor environments shows that CornerRadar achieves a median error that is 3x to 12x smaller than past RF-based solutions for localizing people around corners.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T14:49:56Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/144863
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
last_indexed 2024-09-23T14:49:56Z
publishDate 2022
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/1448632022-08-30T03:15:57Z RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners Cao, Peng Katabi, Dina Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Unmanned robots are increasingly used around humans in factories, malls, and hotels. As they navigate our space, it is important to ensure that such robots do not collide with people who suddenly appear as they turn a corner. Today, however, there is no practical solution for localizing people around corners. Optical solutions try to track hidden people through their visible shadows on the floor or a sidewall, but they can easily fail depending on the ambient light and the environment. More recent work has considered the use of radio frequency (RF) signals to track people and vehicles around street corners. However, past RF-based proposals rely on a simplistic ray-tracing model that fails in practical indoor scenarios. This thesis introduces CornerRadar, an RF-based method that provides accurate around-corner indoor localization. CornerRadar addresses the limitations of the ray-tracing model used in past work. It does so through a novel encoding of how RF signals bounce off walls and occlusions. The encoding, which we call the hint map, is then fed to a neural network along with the radio signals to localize people around corners. Empirical evaluation with people moving around corners in 56 indoor environments shows that CornerRadar achieves a median error that is 3x to 12x smaller than past RF-based solutions for localizing people around corners. S.M. 2022-08-29T16:17:02Z 2022-08-29T16:17:02Z 2022-05 2022-06-21T19:25:40.369Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144863 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2014-5015 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Cao, Peng
RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners
title RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners
title_full RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners
title_fullStr RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners
title_full_unstemmed RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners
title_short RF-Based Indoor Localization Around Corners
title_sort rf based indoor localization around corners
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144863
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2014-5015
work_keys_str_mv AT caopeng rfbasedindoorlocalizationaroundcorners