Hybrid RSS-DOA Fingerprint Indoor Localization Algorithm with Circular Reference Points Layout

This paper proposed a solution to three-dimensional indoor positioning system based on location fingerprint method. Especially, this paper proposed a automatic offline collection method and realizes a off-line collection system, including a collection server and a mobile collection applications, which can be used to collection the information of location fingerprint conveniently, and also improve the efficiency of the off line collection. Moreover, this paper studied the three-dimensional positioning system based on the location fingerprint method, which can obtain the indoor location information with a relative high accuracy. In addition, the authors improve the algorithm based on the location fingerprint, which improves the positioning accuracy and optimizes the positioning performance.

The development of the Internet of Things has accelerated research in the indoor location fingerprinting technique, which provides value-added localization services for existing WLAN infrastructures without the need for any specialized hardware. The deployment of a fingerprinting based localization system requires an extremely large amount of measurements on received signal strength information to generate a location fingerprint database. Nonetheless, this requirement can rarely be satisfied in most indoor environments. In this paper, we target one but common situation when the collected measurements on received signal strength information are insufficient, and show limitations of existing location fingerprinting methods in dealing with inadequate location fingerprints. We also introduce a novel method to reduce noise in measuring the received signal strength based on the maximum likelihood estimation, and compute locations from inadequate location fingerprints by using the stochastic gradient descent algorithm. Our experiment results show that our proposed method can achieve better localization performance even when only a small quantity of RSS measurements is available. Especially when the number of observations at each location is small, our proposed method has evident superiority in localization accuracy.

Many indoor fingerprinting localization methods are based on signal-domain distances with large localization error and low stability. An improved fingerprinting localization method using a clustering algorithm and dynamic compensation was proposed. In the offline stage, the fingerprint database was built and clustered based on offline hybrid distance and an affinity propagation clustering algorithm. Furthermore, clusters were adjusted using transition regions and a given radius, as well as updating the corresponding position and fingerprint of the cluster centroid. In the online stage, the lost received signal strength (RSS) in the reference fingerprint would be dynamically compensated by using a minimum RSS value, rather than a fixed one. Online signal-domain distance was calculated for cluster identification based on RSS readings and compensated reference fingerprint. Then, K reference points with minimum online signal-domain distances were selected, and affinity propagation clustering was reused by position-domain distances to choose the position-concentrated sub-cluster for location estimation. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art fingerprinting methods, with the mean error of 2.328 m, the root mean square error of 1.865 m and the maximum error of 10.722 m in a testbed of 3200 square meters. The improvement rates, in terms of accuracy and stability, are more than 21% and 13%, respectively.

The indoor localization systems based on wireless local area network received signal strength (RSS) have been widely applied due to the simplicity of system deployment as well as easy implementation on various mobile devices like the smartphones. However, they are often suffered by the major drawback of the extensive effort for location fingerprinting which is significantly labor-intensive and time-consuming. In response to this compelling problem, we design an improved manifold alignment approach to construct a cost-efficient radio map which consists of the sparsely collected location fingerprints and crowdsourcing RSS data with the purpose of reducing the overall fingerprints calibration effort. A new graph construction scheme which is proved to be the optimal choice to model the smoothness assumption in semi-supervised learning is proposed to explore the informativeness conveyed by location fingerprints during the process of radio map construction. In addition, the concept of execution characteristic function is considered to minimize the RSS sample capacity at each reference point to reduce fingerprints calibration effort further. Finally, the extensive experimental results demonstrate the performance improvement by the proposed system with the probability of localization errors within 3 m, 79.60%, which is at most 26.30 percentages higher than the one by the existing systems using location fingerprints solely.

With growing technology, Location Based Services (LBSs) are becoming a vital part of life. The rapid development of mobile internet has offered an opportunity for Wi-Fi indoor positioning to come under the spotlight due to its low cost. Here, indoor positioning is performed using Wi-Fi. The earlier solutions like GPS does not provide efficient positioning in indoor environment due to weak signal reception which makes Wi-Fi more reliable. However, nowadays the accuracy of the traditional indoor positioning algorithms like trilateration cannot meet the practical requirement. This paper proposes the performance analysis of indoor positioning algorithms using Wi-Fi technology based on Received Signal Strength (RSS) from the access points in the network. The positioning algorithms are based on location fingerprinting consisting of two stages: The offline database creation and the online positioning. The RSS values obtained by the mobile device at reference points are sent to the server where all the location fingerprints of all reference points are stored in a database. Coordinates of user position are calculated using positioning algorithms and the position is displayed in terms of 2Dcoordinates of the room and indoor map. Basic Fingerprint algorithm, RSS Fingerprint with minimum Euclidean Distance algorithm and RSS Fingerprint with Euclidean Distance and k-nearest neighbors' algorithm were implemented. Moreover comparison of their performance was carried out in terms of accuracy of position. From the result, it is found that an average accuracy of 0.4962 meters was achieved by RSS Fingerprint with minimum Euclidean distance algorithm.

Analytical models to evaluate and predict "precision" performance of indoor positioning systems based on location fingerprinting are lacking. Such models can be used to improve the design of positioning systems, for example by eliminating some fingerprints and reducing the size of the location fingerprint database. In this paper, we develop a new analytical model that employs proximity graphs for predicting performance of indoor positioning systems based on location fingerprinting. The model allows computation of an approximate probability distribution of error distance given a location fingerprint database based on received signal strength and its associated statistics. The performance results from the simulation and the analytical model are found to be congruent. This model also allows us to perform analysis of the internal structure of location fingerprints. We employ the analysis of the internal structure to identify and eliminate unnecessary location fingerprints stored in the database, thereby saving on computation while performing location estimation.

Wireless local area network fingerprint-based indoor localization schemes have been widely studied because of the increasing requirements of location-based services (LBSs). The features of fingerprint-based localization are known to have higher precision in indoor environments than traditional methods, such as triangulation. However, the precision depends on the amount of pre-created received signal strength (RSS) fingerprints, which is associated with the number of reference points (RPs) of the RSS measurements and the available signal sources in the environment. In this paper, we consider the resource limitations of todays’ wireless environment and propose an improved fingerprint-based localization approach that adapts a path loss model for fingerprint creation and localization. Based on the proposed approach, we present two related localization schemes. The first is a path-loss-based fingerprint localization (PFL) scheme and the second is a dual-scanned fingerprint localization (DFL) scheme. The PFL attempts to improve positioning precision, and the DFL attempts to guarantee positioning reliability. Several simulations are performed, and they show that the proposed schemes improve the positioning precision and reliability in resource-limited environments, which would improve the practicability of fingerprint-based localizations in indoor LBSs.

Indoor location based services (LBSs) is an emerging subject in recent years. To solve the problem of building the fingerprint database manually in the Location Fingerprinting (LF) methods, an analytical fingerprinting method is proposed in this paper. It can reduce the cost and has good properties on building database automatically and increasing the robustness against to environment. Moreover, the k nearest neighbor (k-NN) algorithm is used to search the closest fingerprint during the real-time localization phase. The simulation results are provided and the positioning performance is verified in comparison with that of classical methods. Finally, an experiment is carried out in an actual office room to verify the proposed method. Both the simulation and experiment results show that the new method is effective and can bring more accurate and robust localization substantially.

In recent years, indoor localization technique is anticipated to play an increasingly important role in our society. In general, the indoor localization techniques include trilateral, triangulation and fingerprinting localization. As an important alternative, fingerprinting localization techniques are extensively studied and applied in the existing localization systems. This paper presents an overview of the fingerprinting localization system based on the received signal strength (RSS) in indoor wireless LAN (WLAN) environments. In particular, we describe the structure of localization system and then analyze the challenges that most existing research works try to deal with. Corresponding solutions and several pattern matching algorithms are also presented. Furthermore, we demonstrate a comparative study of existing fingerprinting localization systems and address the possible directions of future research in indoor localization techniques.

For Wi-Fi positioning location fingerprinting is very common but has the disadvantage that it is very labour consuming for the establishment of a database (DB) with received signal strength (RSS) scans measured on a large number of known reference points (RPs). To overcome this drawback a novel approach is developed which uses a logical sequence of intelligent checkpoints (iCPs) instead of RPs distributed in a regular grid. The iCPs are the selected RPs which have to be passed along the way for navigation from a start point A to the destination B. They are twofold intelligent because of the fact that they depend on their meaningful selection and because of their logical sequence in their correct order. Thus, always the following iCP is known due to a vector graph allocation in the DB and only a small limited number of iCPs needs to be tested when matching the current RSS scans. This reduces the required processing time significantly. It is proven that the iCP approach achieves a higher success rate than conventional approaches. In average correct matching results of 90.0% were achieved using a joint DB including RSS scans of all employed smartphones. An even higher success rate is achieved if the same mobile device is used in both the training and positioning phase.

Received signal strength based fingerprinting approaches have been widely exploited for localization. The received signal strength (RSS) plays a very crucial role in determining the nature and characteristics of location fingerprints stored in a radio-map. The received signal strength is a function of distance between the transmitter and receiving device, which varies due to various in-path interferences. A detailed analysis of factors affecting the received signal for indoor localization is presented in this paper. The paper discusses the effect of factors such as spatial, temporal, environmental, hardware and human presence on the received signal strength through extensive measurements in a typical IEEE 802.11b/g/n network. It also presents the statistical analysis of the measured data that defines the reliability of RSS-based location fingerprints for indoor localization.

Two obstacles lie in the traditional Signal Strength Fingerprint Positioning method. Initially, the algorithm cannot converge quickly and accurately due to massive data generated by large indoor environment. Secondly, it is difficult to determine a specific floor in a building using the received Signal Strength(RSS). This article proposes a method, which uses convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify the floor and location of Bluetooth RSS as well as magnetic field data to calculate the final coordinates, could apply Fingerprint Positioning into indoor environment with large areas and multiply floors. The method involves converting the collected Bluetooth RSS into the “fingerprint image” required for calculation and establishing the CNN for classification training. Subsequently, the real-time Bluetooth RSS are imported into the CNN to classify the floor and determine the transmitters' location. Additionally, the observer's coordinates are matched using the magnetic field data. Our experiments suggested that the proposed method can classify floors and transmitters' locations with predictable bunds of 0.9667 and 0.9333, respectively. At the same time, the average positioning error is less than 1.2 m, which is 43.32% and 44.67% higher than the traditional Bluetooth and magnetic field fingerprint positioning. The accuracy of dynamic positioning is also within 1.55 meters.

Due to the wide deployment of wireless local area networks (WLANs) and the easy acquirement of received signal strength (RSS), indoor localization based on RSS has attracted considerable attention in both academia and industry. In this paper, we extract the scatter factor from RSS and then propose a novel indoor localization scheme based on location fingerprinting and curve fitting techniques. The scheme is set up in two phases. In the offline phase, we create a fingerprint and apply the curve fitting technique to construct fitted RSS-distance functions in LOS (Line Of Sight) and NLOS (None Line Of Sight) condition, respectively. In online positioning phase, the proposed optimized fingerprinting-based localization algorithm (OFPL) uses trilateration technique to assist the fingerprinting localization in choosing the proper location of the receiver. Through conducting field and extensive experiments, we can draw the conclusion that our proposed algorithm can obtain some improvement in localization accuracy compared with the classical fingerprinting-based localization.

In indoor location environment, shadowing, multipath and reflection phenomena make the position estimation inaccurate. Large number of Access Points (APs) equipped with single antenna could obtain enough Receive Signal Strength (RSS) information to describe signal characteristics of the target space. However, it results in a large investment costs. This paper provides a novel indoor positioning solution using the multi-antennas architecture to increase the accuracy of location estimation. The system obtains enough RSS to compute the user location and provides a reasonable cost of deployments in indoor location environment. Experimental and numerical results show that the proposed indoor location estimation demonstrates a high accuracy of positioning and outstanding performance when RSS is collected by smart antenna technique. More specifically, the accuracy is increased from 1.34% to 92.4% and the error variance is reduced by 96% as compared to the traditional location fingerprint method.

In this paper, we propose a surface correlation based fingerprinting method in sparse Wi-Fi environment. The proposed method can estimate location even with very few Wi-Fi APs by using accumulated spatial RSS pattern. We verify performance of the proposed method through several tests in a building with complex paths. Many studies have developed localization technologies that use measurements such as RSS (Received Signal Strength) or RTT (Round Trip Time) for Wi-Fi signal. All RF have signal noise and distortion problems as well as multipath problem in indoor environments. As the distance from the RF signal source increases, the discrimination of the RSS decreases due to RF signal noise and distortion. Therefore, ambiguity of RSS increases as the distance increases, the performance deteriorates. The conventional RF based localization method have tried to maintain dense RF environment to guarantee stable and accurate performance. However, in order to maintain the dense RF environment, it is becoming a barrier to commercialization of localization technology due to high cost of constructing RF infrastructure and maintenance difficulty. In this paper, we propose a Surface Correlation (SC) based fingerprinting technique to maintain high positioning performance even with few Wi-Fi APs. The surface is the accumulated RSS pattern data during the movement of a pedestrian, which means the spatial RSS pattern. Conventional fingerprinting methods using kNN (k-Nearest Neighbors) and WkNN (Weighted kNN) are very vulnerable to signal noise and distortion because they utilize instantaneous RSS data. The performance of Particle Filter (PF) based localization technology is also degraded in areas where Wi-Fi AP is sparsely distributed. However, the proposed method is very robust against signal noise and distortion because it compares the spatial RSS pattern with the reference RSS pattern on the fingerprinting database. This increases localization accuracy and availability for Wi-Fi coverage. For localization, the proposed method conduct correlation process for the spatial RSS pattern of a pedestrian with reference RSS pattern of database. So, the reference RSS pattern should be extracted from a reference trajectory that matches a pedestrian`s walking path. The proposed method utilize a database of ‘link-node’ structure to dynamically generate a reference trajectory in indoor environment with complicated path. It generate candidate reference trajectories using only MAC address and turn event of Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR). The proposed method fix a reference trajectory between these candidate trajectories through correlation process of measured RSS pattern with each reference RSS pattern. A reference point on the fixed reference having most similar RSS pattern to a pedestrian`s is considered as a current location. In order to improve performance at a fork where RSS ambiguity increases, the proposed method estimates preferentially for a reference trajectory matching with PDR turn event. The turn event can be wrong due to various motion of a pedestrian. The proposed method selects a correct reference trajectory by continuously performing correlation process on candidate reference trajectories. In order to verify the performance of the proposed surface correlation based fingerprinting method, we conducted several tests in a three-story building. Before the tests, we conducted a survey of Wi-Fi environment to construct fingerprinting database in the building. As a result of the survey, 170 APs are distributed in the building. We reduced the number of APs by 20% from 170 to 17, and analyzed performance of the proposed and conventional localization methods. The test results show that the performance of the conventional localization methods degrade as the number of applied APs decreases. The proposed fingerprinting method shows a 3 meter localization error even with very few Wi-Fi APs, and unlike the conventional fingerprinting method, the localization error is bounded to be within 5m due to the use of spatial RSS pattern. In this paper, we presented the fingerprinting method using the surface correlation in sparse Wi-Fi environment. The proposed fingerprinting method accumulates Wi-Fi RSS during movement of a pedestrian. The proposed method compares the spatial RSS pattern, which is accumulated RSS data, with reference RSS patterns of fingerprinting database. By comparing the RSS patterns, the proposed method greatly improves accuracy as well as stability. In addition, it can be effectively applied in a sparse Wi-Fi environment by improving the availability of ambiguous areas of Wi-Fi coverage. Through these results, we expect to be able to provide accurate and reliable location information even in indoor weak RF environment.