An easily deployable system for indoor positioning using Wi-Fi network

Abstract

Traditional outdoor positioning systems such as GPS, fails to locate indoor places and thus Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) have a lot of importance. These systems are integral in providing Location Based Services (LBS) which can ease the daily life with useful information about one's current surroundings. Local network infrastructure such as Wi-Fi which is already available in places such as hospitals, shopping malls and educational institutions, can be used to locate a place in the indoor environment using the properties of the Wi-Fi signal. Hence we propose a model for indoor positioning system which implements a trilateration method using the amount of signal loss of at least three Access Points (AP) to find the position of a target. Also, we use techniques to stabilize the signal collection and compare the data with historical data to provide considerably accurate positional information. This system consists of very few components and the deployment criteria are comparatively simpler, so it can be easily deployed. Also, the use of low cost equipment such as Wi-Fi routers makes sure that the system is economically feasible.