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.
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01 May 2017
TL;DR: An experiment is presented to explore the effect of many people around MD to the RSSI and position error of IPS and the average of position error is 11.34 meter.
Abstract: The ability to check the location of people or mobile devices (MD) in indoor environment has a large number of application. Indoor Positioning System (IPS) utilizes many existing technologies such as radio frequencies, magnetic fields, acoustic signals, thermal, optical or other sensors. WLAN IPS become one of the most favorite solutions because it is already widely exist and provide good accuracy. Fingerprint is one of the methods in WLAN IPS. The performance of this method is greatly affected by received signal strength indicator (RSSI). In fact RSSI value is very dynamic and influenced by environmental conditions inside the room such as walls, ceiling and also human presence. This paper presented an experiment to explore the effect of many people around MD to the RSSI and position error of IPS. People around MD at certain distance and position will be barrier for WLAN signal, therefore the RSSI will decrease. The average of position error because of that effect is 11.34 meter.
5 citations
Cites methods from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...Examples of RF technology used in IPS, among others Wi-Fi/WLAN[11], Bluetooth[12], Zig Bee[13], RFID[14], FM[15], and UWB[16]....
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TL;DR: This is the first work to select the proper machine learning algorithm for an indoor positioning system using multi-criteria decision strategy, and it helps to evaluate the performance of machine learning algorithms considering multiple criteria.
Abstract: Indoor positioning system is an active research area. There are various performance metrics such as accuracy, computation time, precision, and f-score in machine learning based indoor positioning s...
5 citations
15 Oct 2018
TL;DR: This work proposes a truly unsupervised approach for channel-annotation of RSSI data received by a stationary receiver object and proposes a sliding-window based algorithm which utilizes two well-established Likelihood-Ratio algorithms - KLIEP and uLSIF - for extracting Channel State Information of retrospective RSSI observation data.
Abstract: In the world of smart objects, device-ranging and localization using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is becoming popular due to its attractive energy performance, wide platform support and low costs. There has been sufficient motivation on statistical analysis of Channel State Information of Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) data for more effective ranging-based models. However, there has been no ubiquitous solution which is both receiver-agnostic and does not require alteration in the advertisement protocol or packet structure of BLE. In this paper, we propose a truly unsupervised approach for channel-annotation of RSSI data received by a stationary receiver object. Given a sequence of RSSI observations and a discoverable receiver channel-switching policy, we determine the period and hence the time spent by the receiver in an individual channel. Then, we propose a sliding-window based algorithm which utilizes two well-established Likelihood-Ratio algorithms - KLIEP and uLSIF - for extracting Channel State Information of retrospective RSSI observation data. We believe this work lays the foundation of motivating future work in completely unsupervised methods for object-to-object ranging and localization.
5 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...al in [3] report the mean levels of the three separated signals to be varied : (C37: -63....
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...Several studies [3, 8] have explored BLE localization using device-ranging....
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01 Oct 2017
TL;DR: Fe feasibility of accurate indoor positioning using broadcast digital TV signals, readily available in populated areas worldwide, is investigated and a novel approach based on channel state information (CSI) is introduced, which leverages frequency-selective multipath fading of wideband TV signals.
Abstract: Despite the decades of efforts, indoor positioning remains an open research challenge. While existing solutions already demonstrate high accuracy, their inbuilding infrastructure — such as Wi-Fi access points or Bluetooth beacons — provides only a limited coverage. This paper investigates feasibility of accurate indoor positioning using broadcast digital TV signals, readily available in populated areas worldwide. We experiment with the classic received signal strength (RSS) fingerprinting, and introduce a novel approach based on channel state information (CSI), which leverages frequency-selective multipath fading of wideband TV signals. The proposed methods are experimentally evaluated on an extensive dataset of DVB-T signals, systematically collected in two large buildings over the course of 8 months. The results show that the proposed approach consistently outperforms RSS fingerprinting and achieves 92–98% localization accuracy. While this study is based on the European DVB-T signals, the proposed method is directly generalizable to other TV standards (such as ATSC, ISDB, DTMB and DMB) and wide-area TV white space (TVWS) networks.
5 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...In turn, dedicated solutions based on ultrasound [5], [6], ultrawideband radio [7], [8], visible light [9], [10] and Bluetooth beacons [6], [11] provide even higher performance....
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01 Aug 2018
TL;DR: This work investigates the opportunity to use a reactive control mechanism for detecting and approaching people in the considered domain that does not require precise positioning, but hopes for a real application of such low-cost robot into the wild.
Abstract: Socially Assistive Robots used for elderly care are required to determine the location of a person and to approach him/her in order to provide assistance. Human tracking systems are applied to detect and track people that are already in the proximity of the robot, while its limited field of view makes the user easily lost. Moreover, navigation algorithms typically need the availability of reliable sensors on the robot and the possibility of marking possible user locations. On the contrary, in this work, we investigate the opportunity to use a reactive control mechanism for detecting and approaching people. Our approach is tested on two commercial mobile robots that present a different sensors configuration and by using off-the-shelf algorithms for people localization and tracking. Results show the feasibility of the approach with respect to the considered domain that does not require precise positioning, but hopes for a real application of such low-cost robot into the wild. Features of the considered robots and their impact on performance are also discussed.
5 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...displaced near room doors, to keep the robot from leaving the room [13]....
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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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