Status: Preliminary stage — concept definition, theoretical analysis, and architecture exploration.
Seeking funding and collaboration
We are currently advancing this work from theoretical analysis towards prototype development and real-world validation. To accelerate this transition, we are seeking funding, research collaborators, and pilot partners interested in next-generation passive RF sensing and wireless observability.
Passive RF Sensing is a recent Etherwave’s research effort focused on observing and interpreting wireless environments without transmitting or relying on proprietary infrastructure access. The project explores how open, SDR-based sensing can enable transparent, privacy-aware observability of 5G wireless systems.
Why this matters
Wireless networks are a foundational layer of the internet, yet their observability remains largely restricted to proprietary tools and operator-controlled interfaces. This limits independent research, transparency, and innovation.
Passive RF sensing offers an alternative approach: an open, reproducible, and independently deployable way to understand how wireless infrastructure behaves in real environments.
- Transparent measurement of wireless infrastructure
- Reproducible academic and industrial research
- Open experimentation using SDR platforms
- Detection of anomalies or irregular RF behaviour
- Strengthening of digital autonomy through open tools
What we have done so far
So far, the work has focused on establishing the conceptual and technical foundations of passive RF sensing as an open observability framework. This includes identifying relevant use cases, analysing the state of the art, and defining a high-level system architecture aligned with privacy and openness principles.
- Exploration of key use cases, including cellular observability, spectrum mapping, and anomaly detection
- Review of existing LTE and 5G SDR-based monitoring approaches and identification of their limitations
- Definition of a modular sensing architecture covering RF capture, signal processing, and data exposure
- Application of privacy-by-design principles to ensure infrastructure-level observability without user-level data
- Analysis of potential deployment models, including fixed, portable, and elevated sensing platforms
- Investigation of the requirements of a REST API to expose sensing results to interested parties.
This initial phase confirms both the technical feasibility and the broader relevance of the approach, while highlighting the need for an open, reusable, and privacy-conscious implementation. It provides a clear foundation for transitioning from theoretical analysis to a first practical prototype.
Current technical direction
The project is evolving towards a modular and open sensing framework that transforms passive RF observations into structured, reusable insights. The design emphasises reproducibility on commodity SDR hardware, protocol-aware processing, and privacy-preserving data exposure.
- RF capture from the target frequency band using SDR hardware
- Signal discovery and synchronisation to identify active emitters and align processing
- Protocol-aware extraction of broadcast and control information where applicable
- Statistical and behavioural analysis to derive cell-level and spectrum-level metrics
- Privacy-preserving export via structured APIs, datasets, or visualisation tools
This pipeline is designed to be modular and extensible, allowing individual components to evolve independently while supporting multiple sensing use cases. The goal is to move beyond isolated experiments and establish a reusable observability layer for wireless environments.
