Exploration of Device-Free Sensing Ability Based on Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is pervasive in daily life, with its deployment scale and energy efficiency making it suitable for ubiquitous sensing applications. BLE 5.1 introduced Angle of Arrival/ Departure (AoA/AoD) for direction-finding, enabling BLE devices to access phase and amplitude information similar to Channel State Information (CSI) in Wi-Fi sensing. In version 6.0, the new Channel Sounding (CS) feature enhances this capability through synchronization techniques that align the frequency and timing of two devices. This paper explores the sensing potential of CS-enabled BLE devices through practical experiments, presenting the first demonstration of CS-based sensing. Compared to Wi-Fi-based sensing, the proposed technique achieves lower design costs and simpler deployment, enabling broader adoption in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Experiments validate the synchronization advantages of BLE CS, enabling accurate distance measurements and demonstrating potential for human activity sensing. These results position BLE CS-based sensing as a promising direction for next-generation IoT technologies.