A Body-of-Revolution Human Model for RF Sensing with Measurement-Driven Calibration for Indoor Environments

Abstract

Model training for Device-Free Localization (DFL) and Radio-Frequency (RF) sensing systems heavily relies on large-scale datasets, which are costly and time-consuming to obtain through measurements across different environments and sensing configurations. Lightweight yet physically consistent propagation models are therefore critical for efficient generation of realistic RF sensing data. This paper presents an RF sensing prediction approach for indoor environments based on a Body of Revolution (BoR) human model. A fast 2.5-Dimensional Finite Element Method (2.5-D FEM) is proposed for computing the scattering fields of a human-like BoR model under the excitation of a vertical polarized dipole. Through comparisons, the proposed BoR model is shown to preserve scattering characteristics close to 3-D human bodies while yielding a smaller computational cost compared to a simple cylindrical model. A measurement-driven background-field modeling approach is further introduced for practical indoor applications, accounting for the complex propagation effects of indoor environments implicitly. Comparing with measurements of a typical indoor DFL scenario, the proposed approach achieves approximately 85% prediction accuracy and reproduces the spatial Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) variations observed in practice, proving its potential for RF sensing prediction and large-scale database generation at a fraction of the computational cost required for full-wave simulations.