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IEEE 802.11bf: Enabling the Widespread Adoption of Wi-Fi Sensing

Published

Author(s)

Tanguy Ropitault, Steve Blandino, Anirudha Sahoo, Nada T. Golmie

Abstract

In recent years, Wi-Fi has been shown to be a viable technology to enable a wide range of sensing applications, and Wi-Fi sensing has become an active area of research and development. Due to the significant and growing interest in Wi-Fi sensing, Task Group IEEE 802.11bf was formed to develop an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard that will enhance its ability to support Wi-Fi sensing and applications such as user presence detection, environment monitoring in smart buildings, and remote wellness monitoring. In this paper, we identify and describe the main definitions and features of the IEEE 802.11bf amendment as defined in its first draft. Our focus is on the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) sensing procedure, which supports bistatic and multistatic Wi-Fi sensing in license-exempt frequency bands below 7 GHz (specifically, 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz). We also present an overview of basic sensing principles, and provide a detailed discussion of features defined in the IEEE 802.11bf amendment that enhance client-based Wi-Fi sensing.
Citation
IEEE Communications Standards Magazine

Citation

Ropitault, T. , Blandino, S. , Sahoo, A. and Golmie, N. (2023), IEEE 802.11bf: Enabling the Widespread Adoption of Wi-Fi Sensing, IEEE Communications Standards Magazine, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935175 (Accessed March 28, 2024)
Created May 31, 2023, Updated June 2, 2023