Estimation of the number of people in an indoor environment based onWiFi received signal strength indicator

WiFi access points are widely spread everywhere in all our daily life routines. Using these devices to provide services other than the Internet is becoming familiar nowadays. This paper conducts an experimental study to estimate the number of people in an indoor environment through two system setups, line of sight, and non-line of sight. Relationship modeling between WiFi received signal and the number of people uses polynomial regression. The experiment comprised of two stages: first is the data collection from a controlled number of people. Then, the collected data used to train the system through polynomial regression. The second is testing the system’s effectiveness by applying it to an uncontrolled environment. Testing results revealed efficiency in using WiFi received signal strength to do the people counting (up to 60) because of the accuracy achievements of 93.17% in the line of sight system. The non-line of sight system disclosed randomness in the received signal strength indicator regardless of the change in the number of people. The randomness is mainly caused by the fading effect of the concrete wall. Therefore it is inefficient to use the non-line of sight system in concrete buildings