Using High-Efficiency PHY Frames for Motion Detection

A system, comprising:

• a first wireless communication device configured to receive a downlink high-efficiency PHY (HE-PHY) frame transmitted by an access point device to second wireless communication devices residing inside an environment, the downlink PHY frame being addressed to the second wireless communication devices;
• and
• one or more processors configured to perform operations comprising:
• receiving an uplink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (UL-OFDMA) transmission transmitted by the second wireless communication devices to the access point device in response to the downlink HE-PHY frame, the UL-OFDMA transmission comprising uplink HE-PHY frames simultaneously transmitted on respective resource units by the respective second wireless communication devices;
• generating a motion data set comprising a set of motion scores and identifiers of the wireless communication devices based on channel responses computed from the uplink HE-PHY frames, each channel response computed from a respective one of the uplink HE-PHY frames;
• and
• analyzing motion within the environment based on the motion data set.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to perform the operations comprising:

• receiving a downlink high-efficiency PHY (HE-PHY) frame transmitted by an access point device to wireless communication devices residing inside an environment, the downlink HE-PHY frame being addressed to the wireless communication devices;
• receiving an uplink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (UL-OFDMA) transmission transmitted by the wireless communication devices to the access point device in response to the downlink HE-PHY frame, the UL-OFDMA transmission comprising uplink HE-PHY frames simultaneously transmitted on respective resource units by the respective wireless communication devices;
• generating a motion data set comprising a set of motion scores and identifiers of the wireless communication devices based on channel responses computed from the uplink HE-PHY frames, each channel response computed from a respective one of the uplink HE-PHY frames;
• and
• analyzing motion within the environment based on the motion data set.