Embedded Device Free Passive (EDfP) System: Effect of WiFi Protocols

Internet of Things (IoT) concept initiated the evolution of devices capable of wireless communication to cater potential IoT enablers. These devices require specific communication infrastructures for local as well as cloud connection. Ubiquitously available WiFi infrastructure in Malaysia provides a promising platform for the deployment of WiFi based IoT edge devices. In this study, the effect of WiFi protocols on the sensitivity of an ESP32 device to the presence of human entity is evaluated in a pathway of 4.8 square meters. The key objective of this study is to verify the effect of different WiFi protocols on the sensitivity of a potential IoT enabler that performs Device Free Passive (DfP) human presence detection using a single link with an Access Point (AP) without any intervention from an application server. Protocols namely 802.11 B, 802.11 BG, 802.11 BGN with 20 MHz bandwidth and 802.11 BGN with 40 MHz bandwidth are evaluated in this study. Sensitivity measure shows 802.11 BGN protocol with 40 MHz bandwidth has the highest accuracy of 83% for human presence detection. In overall, all the evaluated protocols can be utilized to perform DfP tasks using IoT enablers especially ESP32.