Model-Driven Learning Approach for Robust WiFi-based Fall Detection

Abstract

Indoor falls often lead to fatalities due to delayed assistance. Current approaches to detecting indoor falls, such as cameras and wearables, intrude on privacy and are inconvenient. Radar-based device-free sensing has a limited range and requires dense deployment, leading to overhead costs. WiFi-based solutions, while promising, are currently either environment-dependent or insufficiently tested. In this work, we propose a fusion approach that leverages signal processing techniques to extract environment-independent features from the Channel State Information (CSI) in commercial WiFi devices. We then use a neural network to detect differentiating patterns from these features. Our lightweight LSTM network, with just 21,000 parameters, has been tested on 2,400 fall events from over 25 volunteers in 5 environments. It has also undergone 21 months of false alarm testing in 6 diverse settings. The system achieves a 94.1% detection rate and fewer than 5 false alarms per month in single-person homes.