Location Fingerprinting With Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons
TL;DR: This work provides a detailed study of BLE fingerprinting using 19 beacons distributed around a ~600 m2 testbed to position a consumer device, and investigates the choice of key parameters in a BLE positioning system, including beacon density, transmit power, and transmit frequency.
Abstract: The complexity of indoor radio propagation has resulted in location-awareness being derived from empirical fingerprinting techniques, where positioning is performed via a previously-constructed radio map, usually of WiFi signals. The recent introduction of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio protocol provides new opportunities for indoor location. It supports portable battery-powered beacons that can be easily distributed at low cost, giving it distinct advantages over WiFi. However, its differing use of the radio band brings new challenges too. In this work, we provide a detailed study of BLE fingerprinting using 19 beacons distributed around a $\sim\! 600\ \mbox{m}^2$ testbed to position a consumer device. We demonstrate the high susceptibility of BLE to fast fading, show how to mitigate this, and quantify the true power cost of continuous BLE scanning. We further investigate the choice of key parameters in a BLE positioning system, including beacon density, transmit power, and transmit frequency. We also provide quantitative comparison with WiFi fingerprinting. Our results show advantages to the use of BLE beacons for positioning. For one-shot (push-to-fix) positioning we achieve $30\ \mbox{m}^2$ ), compared to $100\ \mbox{m}^2$ ) and < 8.5 m for an established WiFi network in the same area.
Citations
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01 Oct 2016
TL;DR: This article shows how the deployment of new systems can be reduced by automating the configuration of new wireless devices, based on their location, by using the RSSI in the BLE advertisements of those node.
Abstract: For large-scale wireless networks, the deployment of new systems can be a costly and tedious task. In this article we show how this effort can be reduced by automating the configuration of new wireless devices, based on their location. This technique is useful in e.g. home automation systems where a light switch needs to be paired with the light fixtures. To show how our system works, we have implemented a demonstrator application based on Bluetooth Low Energy. We assume that each room contains a beacon node that holds the settings for that room. Based on the RSSI in the BLE advertisements of those node, a new node can detect in which room it is deployed and update its own settings accordingly. A node can do this correctly in 96% of the case. To improve the reliability, a node can ask the user to confirm its position, whenever there is doubt. This happens in 12% of the cases, resulting in 100% correct localizations.
1 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...For example, an iPhone with iOS 7 or newer can report advertising channels [3]....
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...Depending on the read values it will determine its position within the room [3]....
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...While the latter can be relatively accurate, it requires a lot of work to set up [3]....
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...Other research suggests that adjusting the broadcasts of the advertisements can improve the reliability and reduce the need for user input [3]....
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12 Jan 2019
TL;DR: This paper proposes concepts of standard fingerprint, negative exponential time model, and similarity filtering to update original fingerprint database, and results show that after the proposed fingerprint database updating, fingerprint database positioning accuracy is improved.
Abstract: The accuracy of fingerprint based Bluetooth positioning technology depends on the fingerprint database established in offline phase. However, the change of environment and Access Point (AP) locations has significant impact on wireless signal distribution, resulting a decline in indoor Bluetooth positioning accuracy. In order to solve this problem, this paper presents a fingerprint database updating algorithm. Firstly, RSSI sequence, head, and speed information are extracted from crowdsourcing date. Secondly, the extracted information is used in Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Modification (PDRM) algorithm to get candidate fingerprint. Finally, we propose concepts of standard fingerprint, negative exponential time model, and similarity filtering to update original fingerprint database. The experimental results show that after the proposed fingerprint database updating, fingerprint database positioning accuracy is improved by 0.5 m.
1 citations
TL;DR: This work derives and proposes an approximate way to mathematically express αopt (referred to as bαopt) along with its probability density function (PDF) for a specific scenario and enhances the total throughput of the distributed wireless network by up to 15%.
Abstract: Distributed wireless networks with smart users (independent and rational) are becoming popular, and researchers are studying distributed equilibrium solutions like Nash Equilibrium (NE) to analyze and predict the convergence of such networks. Our goal is to drive the distributed wireless network to NE with high total throughput. Study of the distribution of network metrics at NE with high total throughput shows that communication links still have significant amount of interference. Adding an interference-received term with an optimal weight (αopt) to the link’s payoff can push the distributed network to converge to NE with high total throughput. The channel allocation trend at NE with high total throughput is as follows: each of the C − 1 links occupies its own channel, and the remaining N − C + 1 links share the remaining one channel, where N is the number of links and C is the number of channels in the network. The links (transmitters and receivers) are randomly located and C
1 citations
26 Aug 2019
TL;DR: Analyzing the information broadcasted by a typical Bluetooth Mesh installation shows that it can indeed be utilized by a potentially malicious smartphone app in order to localize a smartphone user within a building, facilitated by the unique advertising address regularly emitted by each mesh node.
Abstract: Previous research demonstrated that Bluetooth Low Energy beacons enable very accurate indoor positioning. This leads to the question whether a Bluetooth Mesh network could inadvertently serve the same purpose, leading to unexpected location privacy violations. We analyze the information broadcasted by a typical Bluetooth Mesh installation and show that it can indeed be utilized by a potentially malicious smartphone app in order to localize a smartphone user within a building. This is facilitated by the unique advertising address regularly emitted by each mesh node. Further, we show that implementing address randomization on the side of the mesh network completely prevents this type of positioning without having a negative impact on the functioning of the mesh network.
1 citations
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, a WiFi fingerprinting radiomap was constructed based on available MAC-addresses, their signal strengths, and GPS coordinates, and evaluated by constructing it of measurements gathered in four days, and testing it for the remaining three days.
Abstract: Along with the rise of the smart city movement, Internet of Things is an upcoming phenomenon. Objects and devices are becoming more and more wirelessly interconnected, communicating information between themselves and to human beings. As an extension on static sensor networks that gather real-time environmental data, the feasibility of implementing a dynamic sensor network based on LoRa communication is researched. To achieve such a dynamic system, a self-developed sensor platform was constructed, based on the microcontroller LoPy. Sensors attached to it include a hygrometer, thermometer and microphone. The emphasis of the research was on localisation of the sensors, to put the gathered sensor data into geographical context. A WiFi fingerprinting radiomap was constructed based on available MAC-addresses, their signal strengths, and GPS coordinates. The GPS module was only used for composing the radiomap. When the radiomap is completed, the module can be switched off, only to be switched on for periodical updates of the radiomap. The quality of the radiomap methodology was evaluated by constructing it of measurements gathered in four days, and testing it for the remaining three days. This test gave a correctness of 50% while another 38% of measurements were localised in a neighbouring cell. The correctness can be improved by having a longer training period. The quality of the collected sensor data turned out to be dependent on the weather conditions and the placement location on the carrier vehicle. Vehicle requirements were specified as driving through the city centre and having a schedule and route producing as little noise, heat and air pollution as possible. Another topic of research was LoRa communication, which was deemed as very limited for dynamic implementations, as the sending of location-related data takes up a large part of the already limited message size. To decrypt the sent message and store it in a meaningful database, Node-RED was used. Despite visualisation of measurements showed promising results, there is margin for improvement as far as data capturing is concerned.
1 citations
References
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01 Nov 2007
TL;DR: Comprehensive performance comparisons including accuracy, precision, complexity, scalability, robustness, and cost are presented.
Abstract: Wireless indoor positioning systems have become very popular in recent years. These systems have been successfully used in many applications such as asset tracking and inventory management. This paper provides an overview of the existing wireless indoor positioning solutions and attempts to classify different techniques and systems. Three typical location estimation schemes of triangulation, scene analysis, and proximity are analyzed. We also discuss location fingerprinting in detail since it is used in most current system or solutions. We then examine a set of properties by which location systems are evaluated, and apply this evaluation method to survey a number of existing systems. Comprehensive performance comparisons including accuracy, precision, complexity, scalability, robustness, and cost are presented.
4,123 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers background in this paper
...Indoor positioning is a mature research field, with many proposed technologies and techniques—comprehensive overviews can be found in [2], [18], [19]....
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06 Jun 2005
TL;DR: The Horus system identifies different causes for the wireless channel variations and addresses them and uses location-clustering techniques to reduce the computational requirements of the algorithm and the lightweight Horus algorithm helps in supporting a larger number of users by running the algorithm at the clients.
Abstract: We present the design and implementation of the Horus WLAN location determination system. The design of the Horus system aims at satisfying two goals: high accuracy and low computational requirements. The Horus system identifies different causes for the wireless channel variations and addresses them to achieve its high accuracy. It uses location-clustering techniques to reduce the computational requirements of the algorithm. The lightweight Horus algorithm helps in supporting a larger number of users by running the algorithm at the clients.We discuss the different components of the Horus system and its implementation under two different operating systems and evaluate the performance of the Horus system on two testbeds. Our results show that the Horus system achieves its goal. It has an error of less than 0.6 meter on the average and its computational requirements are more than an order of magnitude better than other WLAN location determination systems. Moreover, the techniques developed in the context of the Horus system are general and can be applied to other WLAN location determination systems to enhance their accuracy. We also report lessons learned from experimenting with the Horus system and provide directions for future work.
1,631 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers background in this paper
...Here the focus is on radio positioning, specifically using the empirical fingerprinting techniques [3], [15], [17], [22] that avoid the need to model the complex radio propagation environment indoors by patternmatching to a previously surveyed map of radio signal strengths....
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TL;DR: It is concluded that PDR techniques alone can offer good short- to medium- term tracking under certain circumstances, but that regular absolute position fixes from partner systems will be needed to ensure long-term operation and to cope with unexpected behaviours.
Abstract: With the continual miniaturisation of sensors and processing nodes, Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) systems are becoming feasible options for indoor tracking. These use inertial and other sensors, often combined with domain-specific knowledge about walking, to track user movements. There is currently a wealth of relevant literature spread across different research communities. In this survey, a taxonomy of modern PDRs is developed and used to contextualise the contributions from different areas. Techniques for step detection, characterisation, inertial navigation and step-and-heading-based dead-reckoning are reviewed and compared. Techniques that incorporate building maps through particle filters are analysed, along with hybrid systems that use absolute position fixes to correct dead-reckoning output. In addition, consideration is given to the possibility of using smartphones as PDR sensing devices. The survey concludes that PDR techniques alone can offer good short- to medium- term tracking under certain circumstances, but that regular absolute position fixes from partner systems will be needed to ensure long-term operation and to cope with unexpected behaviours. It concludes by identifying a detailed list of challenges for PDR researchers.
749 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers background in this paper
...fingerprints with other sources to form hybrid systems, many of which are based on the idea of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) [10], [16] being applied to pedestrian dead reckoning [13]....
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01 Feb 2000
TL;DR: This paper analyzes shortcomings of the basic system, develops and evaluates solutions to address these shortcomings, and describes several new enhancements, including a novel access point-based environmental profiling scheme, and a Viterbi-like algorithm for continuous user tracking and disambiguation of candidate user locations.
Abstract: We address the problem of locating users inside buildings using a radio-frequency (RF) wireless LAN. A previous paper presented the basic design and a limited evaluation of a user-location system we have developed. In this paper, we analyze shortcomings of the basic system, and develop and evaluate solutions to address these shortcomings. Additionally, we describe several new enhancements, including a novel access point-based environmental profiling scheme, and a Viterbi-like algorithm for continuous user tracking and disambiguation of candidate user locations. Using extensive data collected from our deployment, we evaluate our system’s performance over multiple wireless LAN technologies and in different buildings on our campus. We also discuss significant practical issues that arise in implementing such a system. Our techniques are implemented purely in software and are easily deployable over a standard wireless LAN.
608 citations
01 Jun 2010
TL;DR: NTP version 4 (NTPv4), which is backwards compatible with NTP version 3 (N TPv3), described in RFC 1305, as well as previous versions of the protocol, are described.
Abstract: The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is widely used to synchronize computer
clocks in the Internet. This document describes NTP version 4 (NTPv4),
which is backwards compatible with NTP version 3 (NTPv3), described in
RFC 1305, as well as previous versions of the protocol. NTPv4 includes
a modified protocol header to accommodate the Internet Protocol
version 6 address family. NTPv4 includes fundamental improvements in
the mitigation and discipline algorithms that extend the potential
accuracy to the tens of microseconds with modern workstations and fast
LANs. It includes a dynamic server discovery scheme, so that in many
cases, specific server configuration is not required. It corrects
certain errors in the NTPv3 design and implementation and includes an
optional extension mechanism. [STANDARDS-TRACK]
605 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers methods in this paper
...Before each experiment, each clock was manually synchronized using a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server [20]....
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