Airshark: detecting non-WiFi RF devices using commodity WiFi hardware

  • Authors:

  • Shravan Rayanchu;Ashish Patro;Suman Banerjee

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA;University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA;University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM conference on Internet measurement conference
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose Airshark -- a system that detects multiple non-WiFi RF devices in real-time and using only commodity WiFi hardware. To motivate the need for systems like Airshark, we start with measurement study that characterizes the usage and prevalence of non-WiFi devices across many locations. We then present the design and implementation of Airshark. Airshark extracts unique features using the functionality provided by a WiFi card to detect multiple non-WiFi devices including fixed frequency devices (e.g., ZigBee, analog cordless phone), frequency hoppers (e.g., Bluetooth, game controllers like Xbox), and broadband interferers (e.g., microwave ovens). Airshark has an average detection accuracy of 91-96%, even in the presence of multiple simultaneously active RF devices operating at a wide range of signal strengths (-80 to -30 dBm), while maintaining a low false positive rate. Through a deployment in two production WLANs, we show that Airshark can be a useful tool to the WLAN administrators in understanding non-WiFi interference.