Sensing the Physical World with RF: Self-Interferometry & Passive-Interferometry

RF can provide a non-contact and non-line-of-sight of sensing of the physical world, therefore, it makes RF unique sensing modality that has found applications in automotive sensing, smart-home sensing, health monitoring, and many other applications. Over the years, sensing using RF has explored different application domains wherein RF sensing is used dedicatedly for sensing and may or may not be used for productive wireless communication concurrently. In this talk, I would present active and passive RF sensing platforms, wherein active approaches require a transmitter to transmit the signal and measure reflections to perceive the environment and passive relies on ambient transmissions. Furthermore, the platforms I would describe inherently allows for concurrent productive communication for both active and passive sensing. The landscape of concurrent RF sensing and communication is relatively unexplored, allowing students to choose many interesting research problems to choose from and platforms to conduct research.