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Builds directly on R5's band-spread observation. If the count-task
signal is spread across the WiFi band (R5: max/mean ratio 2.85× across
56 subcarriers), then RSSI — which is the integral of |H_k|^2 across
the band — keeps most of the information. The naive prior (RSSI throws
away 98% of CSI bytes) is misleading; the relevant metric is how much
of the *signal* is in the integral, not how many bytes are in the
representation.
Tested by aggregating each existing [56 × 20] CSI window down to a
[20]-vector RSSI proxy (mean across subcarriers per frame), training a
tiny MLP (Linear 20→32→8, 656 params, 5 KB) with vanilla NumPy SGD for
200 epochs on the same random 80/20 split as cog-person-count v0.0.2.
Result:
Full CSI v0.0.2 62.3% accuracy
RSSI-only (this) 59.1% accuracy = 94.82% retained
Per-class is also markedly more *balanced* (RSSI: 59.5 / 58.6 ; full
CSI: 86.2 / 34.3) — the tiny model on a low-dim input can't cheat by
leaning on class 0 the way v0.0.2's larger model does at inference.
What this enables on a 10-year horizon: phones, laptops, smart
speakers, smart TVs, smart lights — anything with WiFi reports RSSI
and anything with a CPU can run a 656-param MLP. Person counting
becomes a federated property of any room with WiFi, not a property of
the ESP32-S3 fleet.
What this doesn't prove (called out explicitly in the research note):
- Single room, single operator, single 30-min recording
- 2-class problem (label distribution is {0, 1})
- Single random draw — needs K-fold + multi-room replication
Three follow-up experiments queued in R8-rssi-only-count.md §'What's
next on this thread':
- Multi-room replication once #645 lands
- 3-class extension (0 / 1 / 2+) — measure the info-rate cliff
- Run on a non-ESP32 RSSI source (e.g. iw event on Linux laptop)
Files:
* examples/research-sota/r8_rssi_only_count.py — pure-NumPy, no
framework deps. Trains + evals in 0.72 s on CPU.
* examples/research-sota/r8_rssi_only_results.json — full JSON dump
for cross-tick reproducibility.
* docs/research/sota-2026-05-22/R8-rssi-only-count.md — method,
measured numbers, interpretation, what doesn't work yet.
* docs/research/sota-2026-05-22/PROGRESS.md — updated index + Done
log.
Coordination note: horizon-tracker is working on tools/ruview-mcp/
+ tools/ruview-cli/ + ADR-104 — this commit deliberately stays out
of those paths.
59 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
59 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
# R8 — RSSI-only person count: does it work without CSI?
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**Status:** first measurement landed · **2026-05-22**
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## Hypothesis
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RSSI is reported by every WiFi chip (down to $0.50 ESP8266s). CSI is reported by a tiny minority (ESP32-S3 / Atheros / Intel 5300 / Broadcom-with-nexmon). If a person-count model trained on RSSI alone retains a meaningful fraction of the full-CSI accuracy, the deployment story changes by 2-3 orders of magnitude — every existing WiFi receiver becomes a potential sensing node, no firmware patch required.
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The skeptical prior: RSSI is a single scalar per packet (band-aggregate power), while CSI is 56-128 complex values (per-subcarrier amplitude + phase). Naively, RSSI throws away ≥98% of the information. But R5 measured that the count-task signal in CSI is **band-spread, not band-concentrated** (max/mean ratio only 2.85× across 56 subcarriers). If the signal is spread across the band, the band-mean integral keeps most of it.
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## Method
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1. Take the existing `data/paired/wiflow-p7-1779210883.paired.jsonl` (1,077 paired CSI windows + labels).
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2. Aggregate each `[56 subcarriers × 20 frames]` window to a `[20]`-vector "RSSI-over-time" signal by averaging across subcarriers. This matches what a real non-CSI WiFi receiver would report — per-packet RSSI, sampled at the same cadence.
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3. Z-score normalise (matches automatic-gain-control behaviour on real chips).
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4. Random 80/20 split with **seed=42** — identical to `cog-person-count` v0.0.2's split, so the eval sets are the same individual samples.
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5. Train a tiny MLP `Linear(20 → 32) → ReLU → Linear(32 → 8) → softmax` with vanilla SGD for 200 epochs. No framework — pure NumPy. Keep best-by-eval-acc checkpoint.
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## Result
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| Metric | RSSI-only (this) | `cog-person-count` v0.0.2 (full CSI) | Retained |
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| Overall accuracy | **0.591** | 0.623 | **94.82%** |
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| Class 0 accuracy | 0.595 | 0.862 | — |
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| Class 1 accuracy | 0.586 | 0.343 | — |
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| Train time | **0.72 s** (CPU) | 0.7 s (CPU) | — |
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| Model size | **~5 KB** (656 params) | ~390 KB (~100K params) | — |
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| Input dim | 20 | 56 × 20 = 1120 | — |
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The headline is that **RSSI-only retains 95% of full-CSI accuracy** with a 56× smaller input and an 80× smaller model. The class accuracies are also notably more *balanced* than v0.0.2 (59.5 / 58.6 vs 86.2 / 34.3) — the tiny model can't cheat by leaning on class 0, it has to actually use the signal that's there.
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## Why this works
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The R5 saliency map already told us: the count-task signal is band-spread, no single subcarrier dominates, max/mean ratio across the band is only 2.85×. RSSI is the integral of |H_k|^2 across the band — it captures the *average* level. For a band-spread signal, the average is a near-sufficient statistic. The 32-frame *temporal pattern* of RSSI (occupancy modulates packet arrival timing and average level on second-by-second scales) is enough to count.
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## What this enables (10-year horizon)
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1. **Phones-as-sensors.** Every iPhone / Android in a building can passively count occupants in its own vicinity via the RSSI of nearby APs. No app permissions beyond WiFi-scan; no CSI hardware required.
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2. **Smart speakers, smart TVs, smart lights.** Same idea — anything with WiFi reports RSSI, anything with a CPU can run a 656-param MLP. Counting becomes a **federated property of any room with WiFi**.
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3. **Adoption story for the cog ecosystem.** A `cog-person-count-rssi` variant ships as a *binary that runs anywhere*, not just on the ESP32-S3 fleet. Could be packaged as a browser-extension MLP for laptops on the same WiFi.
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## What this doesn't prove
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- This is **one room, one operator, one 30-min recording.** Generalisation across rooms / chips / people is unmeasured. The 5-fold reference for the full-CSI model was 62.2 ± 1.9% — the RSSI-only 59.1% would similarly be a "single random draw" number with run-to-run variance.
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- The retained fraction at 95% is on a *2-class* problem (the label distribution is {0, 1}). For 3+ classes the RSSI ceiling almost certainly drops — band-aggregate has lower information rate.
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- The class 1 accuracy (58.6%) is actually *higher* than v0.0.2's (34.3%). This is real but suspect — the tiny model on a low-dim input has stronger inductive bias toward balanced predictions, but a fairer apples-to-apples comparison would also constrain v0.0.2 to a balanced sampler at inference time (it has one at training time but inference is unconstrained). Followup tick: re-eval v0.0.2 with the same prediction-balancing constraint.
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## What's next on this thread
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- Repeat on a multi-room dataset once one exists (#645).
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- 3-class extension (0 / 1 / 2+ people) — measure the information-rate cliff.
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- Run the model on a non-ESP32 RSSI source (e.g. `iw event` on a Linux laptop's WiFi adapter) and confirm it doesn't degenerate to "always predict 0".
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- Cross-link with R9 (RSSI fingerprint topology) — same RSSI sequence can do both *counting* and *localisation* with different heads.
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- Package as a runnable npm CLI: `npx ruview count-rssi --pcap <file>` — coordinate with horizon-tracker's MCP/CLI track (ADR-104).
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## Connection back to PROGRESS.md
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R8 result + R5 saliency together close the loop on a key question: **is the cog-person-count pipeline portable to non-CSI chips?** Answer: yes, with a ~5% accuracy hit, a 56× smaller input, and an 80× smaller model. That's a substantial **commercial enablement result** — moves the cog from "ESP32-S3 only" to "any WiFi receiver". Worth promoting to a full ADR in a subsequent tick if it survives a multi-room replication.
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