Tracking the Human Body Via a Wireless Network of Pyroelectric Sensor Arrays

Abstract

This paper describes the design and construction of a low-cost wireless sensor network (WSN) intended to track a human body walking upright through its physical topology. The network consists of arrays of pyroelectric infrared (PIR) sensors that can detect a moving body up to five meters away within a semicircular field of view. Data is gathered from these arrays and transmitted to a central processor that triangulates the body's position. Important characteristics of both the PIR sensors and the network's asynchronous nature are elaborated upon to illustrate how they affect the interpretation of the data.