WiARL-UIT: A Public Dataset

for Simultaneous Human Activity Recognition and

Localization using WiFi Signals
Phat-Vo Le Thanh, Quyen Ng. Ph., Quy T. H.,
Minh Tuan Pham, Phuoc Nguyen T. H.*
(1) University of Information Technology, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
(2) Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
{21522452, 21522533, 21522531, 19522479 }@gm.uit.edu.vn,
phuocnth@uit.edu.vn*

Abstract—WiFi-based human sensing technology has unique
properties such as widespread availability, resistance to light
interference, overcoming terrain limitations, and respecting user
privacy. It has been utilized in various fields. One interesting
application is simultaneous human activity recognition and lo-
calization, where the location and activity of a person standing
between WiFi transmitters can be predicted using received WiFi
signals and machine learning models. At the receiver, channel
estimation process calculates the channel state information (CSI)
which plays role as the input features for machine learning
models. However, CSI dataset collection is labor-intensive and
affected by hardware requirements and timing synchronization
between transmitters. Therefore, dataset is not publicly released
in some studies. Other studies used a cable for timing between
transmitters which limits the practicality in real-world scenarios.
In this study, we release the first public dataset with wireless
timing synchronization, namely WiARL-UIT, for simultaneous
human activity recognition and localization. The dataset has 1500
CSI samples for 2 activities at 3 locations. For CSI dataset
collection, we have developed a framework consisting of two
software-define radio (SDR) devices (USRP B200 Mini) trans-
mitting IEEE 802.11n WiFi protocol. Finally, we have evaluated
the performance of various machine learning models in terms
of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. As a result, the best
accuracy is 97.0% with the CNN model, showing the feasibility of
the research direction of simultaneous human activity recognition
and localization. Dataset and source code are publicly share at
https://github.com/F4tt/WiARL-UIT-Dataset.
Index Terms—Activity Recognition, WiFi Human Sensing,
Indoor Localization, Machine Learning, CSI Fingerprints.
I. I NTRODUCTION
WiFi technology is now widely popular and virtually always
present in our lives. Transmitted WiFi signals are multi-
path faded and can be affected by people standing on their
propagation paths. WiFi-based human sensing applications
exploit the signal variations in amplitude and phase to predict
the information contained in received signals. Currently, WiFi-
based human sensing is extensively utilized in various fields,
including activity recognition [1]–[10], indoor localization
[11]–[14], and healthcare applications [15]–[17]. This success
is attributed to WiFi’s unique properties, such as widespread
availability, resistance to light interference, overcoming terrain
limitations, and respecting user privacy.
For smart city applications, user activity and location aware-
ness is a crucial factor. There are several interesting studies
on the potential for simultaneous human activity recognition
and localization using WiFi signals [18], [19]. These studies
successfully demonstrate that it is possible to predict features
of activities and features of locations within the same CSI sam-
ples. However, there are some limitations. In study [18], since
the dataset is not publicly available, it is challenging to conduct
additional research on the subject. The study [19] has publicly
released the dataset with 1394 CSI samples in various activities
and locations. The WiFi transmitter and receiver are connected
by a cable which provides perfect timing synchronization.
However, the sync cable makes it impractical for real-world
scenarios. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a framework
for collecting WiFi CSI samples according to simultaneous
task of activity recognition and localization. The proposed
framework consists of software-defined radio USRP devices
with wireless timing synchronization. Using this framework,
we have collected a dataset of 1500 CSI samples for various
locations and activities, then made it publicly available.
The main contributions of our research can be summarized
as follows:
• Developing a SDR-based framework with wireless timing
synchronization to obtain WiFi channel state information
for simultaneous human activity recognition and indoor
localization.
• Collecting a dataset named WiARL-UIT with 1500 sam-
ples for various locations and activities. The dataset is
publicly shared at https://github.com/F4tt/WiARL-UIT-
Dataset.
• Evaluating the performance of various deep learning
models on the WiARL-UIT dataset in terms of accuracy,
precision, recall, and F1-score. The highest achieved
accuracy is 97.0% with the CNN model, showing the
feasibility of the research direction. The source code is
also shared by the link above.

Fig. 1. ”Application of simultaneous activity recognition and localization
for smart-home scenarios.”
II. R ELATED W ORK
A. Human Sensing Using WiFi Signals
Recently, many studies have been dedicated to the research
direction of human sensing using variations in WiFi signal
waveforms [1]–[10]. Based on the channel state information
received from channel estimation, many interesting ideas have
been implemented to predict the human behaviors standing on
the propagation path of the WiFi signals. For example, the
study [1] demonstrates the possibility of WiFi-based human
recognition for various activities such as stumbling, slipping,
fainting, sitting down, and standing up. This study highlights
the practicality of human action recognition in the medical
field. Similarly, in [3], WiFi signals are used to detect human
hand gestures with 96% accuracy. This can be an interesting
idea for applying to smart city scenarios. Moreover, the studies
[3], [4] analyze the ability to recognize user keystrokes in the
conditions of small signal amplitudes. Finally, human local-
ization is also studied in [11]–[14] with impressive results.
B. Simultaneous Human Activity Recognition and Indoor Lo-
calization
Although there have been a lot of studies on human recogni-
tion based on WiFi signals, there has not been much research
on the joint task of activity recognition and localization
simultaneously. The Fig.1 demonstrates the application of
simultaneous activity recognition and localization for smart-
home scenarios.
The first study on this topic is [18], which aims to precisely
identify actions taken despite location changes. A system
of eight wireless devices is deployed at two locations: in a
laboratory and an apartment. All devices are synchronized
by wireless signals. The best results were achieved when
recognizing the ”stand” action at different locations with an
accuracy of 98% in the laboratory and 100% in the apartment.
The second study [19] has shown the feasibility of iden-
tifying both actions and locations from Channel State Infor-
mation (CSI) samples. A 1D Convolutional Neural Network
model was trained to distinguish the positions and actions of
volunteers with a pre-prepared dataset. The results achieved
were 88.13% for location recognition and 95.68% for action
recognition. This study demonstrates that it is possible to
separate features of actions and features of locations within
the same CSI sample.
To advance the research direction, we implemented an
SDR-based framework for collecting WiFi-based CSI dataset,
analyzed the dataset for various machine learning models, and
publicly shared the collected dataset.
C. Publicly Available Datasets
In recent years, several datasets have been publicly released
for research in human recognition using WiFi signals such
as [2], [9], [19], [20]. Because collecting CSI datasets is
labor-intensive, these public datasets are valuable data sources
for researchers to evaluate ML models for human activity
recognition or indoor localization. However, for simultaneous
human activity recognition and localization, the public dataset
in [19] is unique. In the study [19], the dataset was constructed
with 6 actions performed sequentially at 16 different locations
in indoor environments with a total of 1394 data samples.
What is special about this dataset is that CSI samples contain
information including both action and location, suitable for
models that can simultaneously recognize human activities and
indoor localization in the future.
To further contribute to the field of human sensing based
on WiFi signals in general, and simultaneously recognize
human activities and indoor localization in particular, we have
publicly released the WiARL-UIT dataset in this study.
III. M ETHODOLOGY
A. Recognition of Human Activity and Indoor Localization
Simultaneously using CSI
The initial foundation of this topic is based on wireless
sensing, specifically WiFi sensing. When it comes to WiFi
sensing, is defined as a sensing technology that detects phys-
ical or biological phenomena and converts that information
into electric signals that can be analyzed for various purposes.
Wi-Fi sensing uses Wi-Fi - also known as wireless local area
networks (WLAN), to identify and interpret presence and
motion. WiFi sensing detects and interprets motion through
two stages:
• Pre-processing and initial filtering: The raw data provided
by WiFi devices (referred to as ’CSI’ or ’channel state
information’) is filtered to eliminate pets and other non-
human movements.
• Higher-level processing: Artificial intelligence (AI) and
machine learning algorithms then analyze the data for
advanced applications, such as interpreting breathing pat-
terns.
In the first stage, CSI (Channel State Information) can be
utilized for recognition tasks by analyzing the variations in the
wireless channel caused by the influence of the human body
between the transmitter and receiver devices. CSI is a signal
metric captured in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplex-
ing (OFDM) transmission system that describes the amplitude
and phase changes across multiple subcarrier frequencies as
wireless signals travel from a transmitter to a receiver. The
OFDM system is modeled as:
y = Cx+n (1)
where x and y are complex vector indicating transmitted and
received signal respectively, n is a noise vector and finally,
C is a channel-information matrix. CSI is collected for each
subcarrier and the value for each of them is defined as a com-
(s)
plex number with a real component (Cr ) and an imaginary
(s)
component (Ci ). With that, denoting the subcarrier index as
s, we can calculate amplitude from raw CSI,
q
(s) 2 (s) 2
A(s) = (Ci ) + (Cr ) (2) Fig. 2. Broadcast and Receive systems
, and phase as well,
(s)
ϕs = atan2(Ci , Cr(s) ) (3)
In the next stage, we will use machine learning models
to train a dataset for the problem of simultaneous human
activity recognition and localization. The idea for simultaneous
recognition is described as follows: Given predefined labels
during the dataset collection process as shown in Fig.5, we
simultaneously differentiate information about the location (L)
and information about the action (A) recorded in the CSI
Fig. 3. System Framework
samples to determine which label the CSI sample belongs to.
Unlike traditional action recognition or location recognition
problems, here we require simultaneous accuracy in both at 3 locations, ”Right”, ”Mid”, and ”Left” within the WiFi
L and A. Suppose when comparing a sample CSI with a coverage area, described in Fig.4. This led to acquiring 6
predetermined label, the results show similarity in L, but labels, as depicted in Fig.5. For every label, we amassed
the result when comparing information about A returns ”not 250 CSI samples, totaling 1500 CSI samples for the dataset.
similar”, then we can conclude the sample CSI does not belong This dataset fulfills all the necessary criteria for our proposed
to that label. model’s objective of simultaneous recognition of both position
B. Proposed Platform for WiFi CSI Collection and action. As discussed in subsection II-C, there is a publicly
available dataset in [19] that aligns with the requirements
With two universal software radio peripherals (USRPs), we
for simultaneous recognition goals. This dataset offers the
implement the standard IEEE 802.11 protocol to collect CSI
advantage of creating numerous labels, up to 64 labels (6
samples. The USRP mainly consists of a motherboard (USRP
actions x 16 locations). However, the CSI samples per label are
B200-Mini) and a WiFi antenna (VERT-2450), which is used
limited (15 samples). To contribute to this field, we curated the
to broadcast or receive WiFi signals under the control of GNU
WiARL-UIT dataset with 6 labels but increased the number
Radio*. As shown in Fig.2, there is a view of the USRP and the
of CSI samples for each label to 250. The aim was to improve
details are listed below. Meanwhile, the assembling diagram
performance, reduce overfitting, increase accuracy, etc.
is shown in Fig. 3.
• USRP B200-Mini: A software-defined radio (SDR) de- B. CSI Fingerprint Analysis
vice with a wide frequency range from 70 MHz to 6 GHz We have simulated CSI fingerprint samples corresponding
and a user-programmable Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX75 to different labels, as stated in Fig.5. We have presented 6
FPGA that can be embedded IEEE 802.11a/g/p protocol samples in Fig.6, each corresponding to a different label. The
to send and receive WiFi packages for CSI samples. x-axis in the figure represents the number of packets while the
• Antennas VERT-2450: To broadcast or receive WiFi y-axis represents the amplitude of the CSI. Each CSI sample
signals under the control of GNU Radio* consists of 52 subcarrier series is the number of orthogonal
• Computer and USB cables: To control B200-Mini when frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) [15] sub-carriers that
set in the same local area network as B200-Mini carry data in parallel in WiFi protocol. Fig.6 shows that CSI is
not too different despite the differences in location and action.
IV. DATA COLLECTION
In Fig.7 and Fig.8, we have provided examples of samples
A. Dataset that perform the same action in different locations. Addition-
To collect the WiARL-UIT dataset, we assigned a vol- ally, Fig.9 represents samples where we perform two different
unteer to execute 2 actions, ”HandUp” and ”ToTheLeft”, actions at the same location. Each sample with an x-axis
 Fig. 6. CSI Fingerprints of 6 labels corresponding to the locations and actions
mentioned in Fig.5

Fig. 7. CSI fingerprints of the T oT heLef t” action in 3 corresponding

Fig. 4. Layout Diagrams with 3 locations LEF T , M ID and RIGHT location

value of 600. Based on Fig.6, the CSI are minimally affected

by changes in location and action, however, there is still a
significant change in the y-axis (amplitude).

V. M ODELS P ERFORMANCE
To obtain the results, we proceeded to use the collected
dataset WiARL-UIT to train machine learning models. Here
we propose using both complex neural network models such

Fig. 8. CSI fingerprints of the HandU p action in 3 corresponding location

Fig. 5. When a volunteer performs an action at a corresponding location, a

label is generated. The total number of labels is 6, which are A, B, C, D, E,
and F. Each label contains 250 samples.

Fig. 9. CSI fingerprints of 2 actions in the same location M ID

Fig. 10. Learning Curves and Losses when using CNN and MLP models
Models CNN MLP KNN SVM
Accuracy 97.0% 82.6% 80.6% 76.6%
Precision 97.0% 86.9% 81.1% 76.8%
Recall 96.8% 80.3% 80.9% 76.6%
F1 96.9% 83.48% 80.6% 76.0%
TABLE I
M ODELS P ERFORMANCE .
as CNN, and MLP, and simple machine learning models like
SVM, and KNN. The results are listed in the Table.I
The relatively high results demonstrate the feasibility of
the simultaneous recognition problem. However, there is a
discrepancy in results between complex neural network models
and simple machine learning models. With a large number of
data samples (1500) compared to the number of labels (6), the
neural network models show superiority in the simultaneous
recognition problem. Especially, the CNN model achieved
the highest result of 97.0% in terms of Accuracy, Precision,
Recall, and F1 score after training for 100 epochs with a batch
size of 128, learning curves in Fig.10 show that the CNN
model performs well on both the training and test datasets,
demonstrating good generalization ability and no overfitting
problems. Uniformity in the four parameters of the CNN
model can be calculated using the confusion matrix in Fig.11.
The corresponding results for each label are 100%, 98%,
91.4%, 98.2%, 97.6%, and 95.4% respectively. CNN followed
by MLP shows significant differences in results with 82.6%
accuracy for the MLP model. Meanwhile, simple machine
learning models like KNN were trained in 2 seconds with
an accuracy of 80.6%, and SVM was trained in 90 seconds
with an accuracy of 76.6%. The results of The SVM model’s
results can be enhanced by tuning hyperparameters, optimizing
margins, etc. However, this process is complex and demands
significant computational resources, which may not be ideal
when compared with employing Neural Network models.
In summary, the CNN model demonstrates higher capability
in learning and extracting features from CSI data, aligning with
the proposed model. Thus, we chose CNN as our main model
for simultaneously recognizing human activities and indoor
localization using CSI problem.
Fig. 11. Confusion matrix of CNN model
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we have developed a framework for WiFi CSI
dataset collection, which consists of two SDR devices using
wireless timing synchronization. Moreover, we have collected
and publicly shared the WiARL-UIT dataset - the first CSI
dataset with wireless timing synchronization for simultaneous
human activity recognition and indoor localization. Among
evaluated models, the best performance of 97% accuracy was
obtained by the CNN model. The research has demonstrated
the feasibility of signal recognition based on simultaneous
differences in location and actions to differentiate between dif-
ferent signal labels. This opens up new avenues for combining
simultaneous recognition of multiple CSI sample information
in the future. For future research, the ML model should
be deployed on embedded devices and tested in real-world
scenarios.
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