Eigenplaces: Segmenting Space through Digital Signatures

Unlike radio and television's unidirectional broadcast, wireless data network transceivers can act as probes to propagate environmental data back to a network observer. This fundamental difference lets researchers use the volume, timing, and distribution of packets passing across communications networks of varying scales to study the bricks and mortar" of physical space. The authors use the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) network to collect data generated as a by-product of network activity and correlate it with the physical environment using eigendecomposition. © 2010 IEEE."