A Comprehensive Survey on Wi-Fi Sensing for Human Identity Recognition

Abstract

In recent years, Wi-Fi sensing technology has become an emerging research direction of human–computer interaction due to its advantages of low cost, contactless, illumination insensitivity, and privacy preservation. At present, Wi-Fi sensing research has been expanded from target location to action recognition and identity recognition, among others. This paper summarizes and analyzes the research of Wi-Fi sensing technology in human identity recognition. Firstly, we overview the history of Wi-Fi sensing technology, compare it with traditional identity-recognition technologies and other wireless sensing technologies, and highlight its advantages for identity recognition. Secondly, we introduce the steps of the Wi-Fi sensing process in detail, including data acquisition, data pre-processing, feature extraction, and identity classification. After that, we review state-of-the-art approaches using Wi-Fi sensing for single- and multi-target identity recognition. In particular, three kinds of approaches (pattern-based, model-based, and deep learning-based) for single-target identity recognition and two kinds of approaches (direct recognition and separated recognition) for multi-target identity recognition are introduced and analyzed. Finally, future research directions are discussed, which include transfer learning, improved multi-target recognition, and unified dataset construction.