MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has created a new system called Chronos that can accurately detect the position of a person or object inside a room within tens of centimeters, using WiFi signals only.
Chronos works without the aid of any secondary sensors, only using a technology called time-of-flight calculation, which measures the time it takes data to travel from the WiFi access point to the user's device.
Chronos is more accurate than current triangulation-based systems According to MIT, this new system is 20 times more accurate than the current WiFi-based tracking systems.
Researchers say that Chronos was 94 percent successful in detecting which room a person is currently in, and 97 percent successful in determining if a shop's customer was inside or outside the store.
Researchers say that coffee shops and stores can benefit from something like Chronos because it will allow them to use passwordless WiFi connections for their clients, preventing nearby users from loitering on their WiFi.
Additionally, since Chronos can locate persons within tens of centimeters, researchers say that they could be mounted on drones and allow them to survey indoor locations while also keeping away from room occupants.
