Single User WiFi Structure from Motion in the Wild

• Published in: 2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) pp. 2157 - 2163
• Main Authors: Qian, Yiming, Yan, Hang, Herath, Sachini, Kim, Pyojin, Furukawa, Yasutaka
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 23.05.2022
• Subjects: Bundle adjustment; Crowdsensing; Pandemics; Pipelines; Robot sensing systems; Structure from motion; Visualization
• DOI: 10.1109/ICRA46639.2022.9812340

This paper proposes a novel motion estimation algorithm using WiFi networks and IMU sensor data in large uncontrolled environments, dubbed "WiFi Structure-from-Motion" (WiFi SfM). Given smartphone sensor data through day-to-day activities from a single user over a month, our WiFi SfM algorithm estimates smartphone motion tra-jectories and the structure of the environment represented as a WiFi radio map. The approach 1) establishes frame-to-frame correspondences based on WiFi fingerprints while exploiting our repetitive behavior patterns; 2) aligns trajectories via bundle adjustment; and 3) trains a self-supervised neural network to extract further motion constraints. We have col-lected 235 hours of smartphone data, spanning 38 days of daily activities in a university campus. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach over the competing methods with qualitative evaluations of the estimated motions and quantitative evaluations of indoor localization accuracy based on the reconstructed WiFi radio map. The WiFi SfM technology will potentially allow digital mapping companies to build better radio maps automatically by asking users to share WiFi/IMU sensor data in their daily activities.