Impact of the human motion on the variance of the received signal strength of wireless links

Human motion has strong impact on the received signal strength (RSS) of indoor wireless links that can be exploited for variance-based device-free positioning. In this paper, we investigate the effect of human motion on the variance of the RSS of wireless local area networks (WLAN) operating at 2.4 GHz. Using measurements, the RSS variance for human in-place motion is determined as a function of the human position in a corridor setting. We provide ray tracing and empirical models to capture this effect. The accuracy of the different models is compared under different scenarios. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of having multiple-entities in the same area of interest on the RSS variance and provide models for it. © 2011 IEEE.