<i>MetaTrack:</i> Enabling Wi-Fi Device Free Tracking in Complex Scenarios

In recent years, Wi-Fi-based human activity sensing has emerged as a prominent research domain, attracting considerable attention across both academic and industrial communities. While the Fresnel zone model has served as a fundamental theoretical framework for Wi-Fi sensing systems, its explanatory power proves inadequate when applied to complex real-world environments. Although numerous studies have attempted to establish theoretical models for cross-link and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios, a unified theoretical framework for device-free tracking in complex environments remains lacking. To fill this gap, we introduce MetaTrack , which is designed to achieve device-free tracking in complex scenarios in the form of sensing-informed lightweight neural network modules. In this paper, our contribution is twofold: 1) We propose Tracking Heat Zone (THZ), a novel representation that describes wireless signal distributions in diverse scenarios, enabling adaptive modeling of arbitrary environments. 2) We design a standardized sensing-informed modular pipeline that effectively translates THZ representations into lightweight neural network. Such a customizable solution is not only easily deployed, but also flexible to adapt to different kinds of complex scenarios. Experiments in several environment settings show that MetaTrack achieves high-precision tracking not only in ideal scenarios with a median error of 0.48 m , but also in complex environments with a median error 0.52 m , demonstrating its technical strength where it matters most.

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Publication Details

Journal
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
Published
2025-12-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3770686
Primary Topic
Indoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

MetaTrack: Enabling Wi-Fi Device Free Tracking in Complex Scenarios

Xin Nan Xie, Xuanqi Meng, Xiulong Liu, Yichen Tian et al.
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
Indoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies
article

MetaTrack: Enabling Wi-Fi Device Free Tracking in Complex Scenarios

Xin Nan Xie, Xuanqi Meng, Xiulong Liu, Yichen Tian, Wenyu Qu, Xinyu Tong, Weiping Ge
article en

Abstract

In recent years, Wi-Fi-based human activity sensing has emerged as a prominent research domain, attracting considerable attention across both academic and industrial communities. While the Fresnel zone model has served as a fundamental theoretical framework for Wi-Fi sensing systems, its explanatory power proves inadequate when applied to complex real-world environments. Although numerous studies have attempted to establish theoretical models for cross-link and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios, a unified theoretical framework for device-free tracking in complex environments remains lacking. To fill this gap, we introduce MetaTrack , which is designed to achieve device-free tracking in complex scenarios in the form of sensing-informed lightweight neural network modules. In this paper, our contribution is twofold: 1) We propose Tracking Heat Zone (THZ), a novel representation that describes wireless signal distributions in diverse scenarios, enabling adaptive modeling of arbitrary environments. 2) We design a standardized sensing-informed modular pipeline that effectively translates THZ representations into lightweight neural network. Such a customizable solution is not only easily deployed, but also flexible to adapt to different kinds of complex scenarios. Experiments in several environment settings show that MetaTrack achieves high-precision tracking not only in ideal scenarios with a median error of 0.48 m , but also in complex environments with a median error 0.52 m , demonstrating its technical strength where it matters most.

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous TechnologiesVol. 9(4)
Tianjin University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 62%
Indoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies
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