{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T02:55:21Z","timestamp":1760151321172,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,14]],"date-time":"2022-03-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1647216000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>COVID-19 is currently the biggest threat that challenges all of humankind\u2019s health and property. One promising and effective way to control the rapid spreading of this infection is searching for primary close contacts of the confirmed cases. In response, we propose COVID-19 Tracer, a low-cost passive searching system to find COVID-19 patients\u2019 close contacts. The main idea is utilizing ubiquitous WiFi probe requests to describe the location similarity, which is then achieved by two designed range-free judgment indicators: location similarity coefficient and close contact distance. We have carried out extensive experiments in a school office building, and the experimental results show an average accuracy of more than 98%, demonstrating our system\u2019s effectiveness in judging close contacts. Last but not least, we have developed a prototype system for a school building to find potential close contacts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s22062255","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,15]],"date-time":"2022-03-15T02:56:20Z","timestamp":1647312980000},"page":"2255","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Toward COVID-19 Contact Tracing though Wi-Fi Probes"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"22","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2651-3432","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xu","family":"Yang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221000, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5589-1582","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chenqi","family":"Shi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221000, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Peihao","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221000, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3296-4256","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yuqing","family":"Yin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221000, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Qiang","family":"Niu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221000, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yang, X., Li, P., Yin, Y., Pang, M., Niu, Q., and Chen, P. 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