[2603.10845] Human Presence Detection via Wi-Fi Range-Filtered Doppler Spectrum on Commodity Laptops

Electrical Engineering and Systems Science > Signal Processing arXiv:2603.10845 (eess) [Submitted on 11 Mar 2026 (v1), last revised 24 Mar 2026 (this version, v2)] Title:Human Presence Detection via Wi-Fi Range-Filtered Doppler Spectrum on Commodity Laptops Authors:Jessica Sanson, Rahul C. Shah, Valerio Frascolla View a PDF of the paper titled Human Presence Detection via Wi-Fi Range-Filtered Doppler Spectrum on Commodity Laptops, by Jessica Sanson and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Human Presence Detection (HPD) is key to enable intelligent power management and security features in everyday devices. In this paper we propose the first HPD solution that leverages monostatic Wi-Fi sensing and detects user position using only the built-in Wi-Fi hardware of a device, with no need for external devices, access points, or additional sensors. In contrast, existing HPD solutions for laptops require external dedicated sensors which add cost and complexity, or rely on camera-based approaches that introduce significant privacy concerns. We herewith introduce the Range-Filtered Doppler Spectrum (RF-DS), a novel Wi-Fi sensing technique for presence estimation that enables both range-selective and temporally windowed detection of user presence. By applying targeted range-area filtering in the Channel Impulse Response (CIR) domain before Doppler analysis, our method focuses processing on task-relevant spatial zones, significantly reducing computational complexity. I...