Bistatic Delay-Doppler Sensing for 3D Target Localization in Distributed Wi-Fi Systems
Abstract
This paper investigates how bistatic delay information improves the observability and localization performance of 3D moving targets in distributed Wi-Fi sensing. Motivated by emerging IEEE 802.11bf WLAN sensing, we consider one transmitter, multiple distributed receivers, and a single target with unknown position and velocity. We compare Doppler-only sensing with delay-Doppler sensing, in which delay-capable receivers provide additional bistatic path-length information for target localization. We derive the Fisher information matrix (FIM) and the position equivalent FIM (EFIM) for both sensing formulations. The resulting observability analysis shows that Doppler-only localization generically requires six receivers, whereas delay-Doppler localization can become locally identifiable with three receivers under non-degenerate geometry. We further study mixed receiver architectures in which only a subset of receivers provides delay estimates. Simulations with Wi-Fi-like bandwidths confirm the transition and quantify the roles of bandwidth, Doppler noise, receiver geometry, and delay-capable receiver availability.
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BibTeX
@misc{hong2026bistatic,
title = {{Bistatic Delay-Doppler Sensing for 3D Target Localization in Distributed Wi-Fi Systems}},
author = {Kyungmin Hong and Moein Ahmadi and Thomas Stifter and Mounim A. El Yacoubi and Bhavani Shankar Mysore R},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.15641},
eprint = {2610.15641},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15641},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Bistatic Delay-Doppler Sensing for 3D Target Localization in Distributed Wi-Fi Systems
AU - Kyungmin Hong
AU - Moein Ahmadi
AU - Thomas Stifter
AU - Mounim A. El Yacoubi
AU - Bhavani Shankar Mysore R
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.15641
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15641
AB - This paper investigates how bistatic delay information improves the observability and localization performance of 3D moving targets in distributed Wi-Fi sensing. Motivated by emerging IEEE 802.11bf WLAN sensing, we consider one transmitter, multiple distributed receivers, and a single target with unknown position and velocity. We compare Doppler-only sensing with delay-Doppler sensing, in which delay-capable receivers provide additional bistatic path-length information for target localization. We derive the Fisher information matrix (FIM) and the position equivalent FIM (EFIM) for both sensing formulations. The resulting observability analysis shows that Doppler-only localization generically requires six receivers, whereas delay-Doppler localization can become locally identifiable with three receivers under non-degenerate geometry. We further study mixed receiver architectures in which only a subset of receivers provides delay estimates. Simulations with Wi-Fi-like bandwidths confirm the transition and quantify the roles of bandwidth, Doppler noise, receiver geometry, and delay-capable receiver availability.
ER -