Differential Access Points for Indoor Location

Estimation

Ning Chang Rashid Rashidzadeh Majid Ahmadi

Dept. of Electrical Engineering Dept. of Electrical Engineering Dept. of Electrical Engineering
University of Windsor University of Windsor University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario Windsor, Ontario Windsor, Ontario
Chang11@uwindsor.ca Rashida@uwindsor.ca Ahmadi@uwindsor.ca

Abstract—Location positioning systems using Wi-Fi
infrastructure are considered cost effective and practical
solutions for indoor location tracking and estimation. However,
accuracy deterioration due to environmental factors and the
need for manual offline calibration limit the application of these
systems. In this paper, a new method based on differential
operation access points is proposed to eliminate the adverse
effects of environmental factors on location estimation using Wi-
Fi based systems. Experimental measurement results indicate
that the proposed method can effectively reduce the positioning
errors introduced by path loss variation over time due to
changes in environmental dynamics.
I. INTRODUCTION
With the advent of greater mobility, a significant need for
location positioning has emerged. Global Positioning System
(GPS) has become an essential part of location tracking and
positioning infrastructure. However, GPS cannot be directly
used for indoor location positioning due to its significant
error in closed environments. In GPS navigation system,
geo-positions are determined through triangulation of radio
signals transmitted by satellites. GPS receivers calculate their
positions based on the velocity and the travel-time of
transmitted signals assuming a line-of-sight propagation
condition. Any physical barrier between the satellites and the
GPS receivers affects the travel time and can lead to a
significant error in location estimation.
The need for an indoor positioning system has led to many
theoretical and experimental works in this field. A simple
solution to the problem of indoor positioning is to implement
a network of cameras to capture real time images and
determine locations of desired objects through image
processing techniques. The down side is the need to a
considerable number of cameras and direct line-of-sight
connections for accurate location positioning. Network of
sensors is developed as an alternative method for indoor
positioning [1, 2]. This method can provide accuracy in the
range of few centimetres. However, this method likewise
suffers from the need for a wide deployment of a heavy
infrastructure. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
has also been exploited for indoor positioning applications
resulting in an assisted GNSS method in which GPS repeaters
are employed in the area of interest for location positioning.
This method has been successfully implemented in various
indoor configurations attaining an average accuracy of less
than 2 meters [3, 4]. The need for dedicated hardware limits
the application of this method. Location positioning using
wireless networks based on IEEE 802.11b, often called Wi-Fi,
presents the advantages of reusing an already available
infrastructure. Wireless networks have become a critical
component of networking architecture and are available in
most corporate environments and commercial buildings such
as universities, airports, restaurants, etc. The existing wireless
network infrastructure can be used to determine a user
location without any extra hardware. The main idea is to
measure the strength of the received signal from access points
and then estimate the distance based on the signature of the
received signal strengths. The power of the signal received by
a user is a function of the distance between the user and the
access points. This relationship can be used as a basis to
estimate the location of a user. Wireless communication
channels in indoor environments are generally noisy making
the Received Signal Strength (RSS) a complex function of
distance and environmental factors. The RSS changes
considerably with a wide range of factors such as humidity,
interference from other wireless devices and presence people
in the area of interest. The fluctuation of RSS in indoor
environments reduces the accuracy of the location estimation
considerably. In this paper, differential access points are used
to decrease the adverse effects of surrounding environment
on RSS. The proposed method is an analogy to the tradition
differential amplifiers where noise and interference are

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 9.5 10 6.5 8.5 6 7 9.5
7.5 10 9.5 10.5 5 7.5 10
5.5 11.5 7 9.5 8 6 11.5 271 272
273
8 10.5 10.5 8 8 10.5 10.5 274
M-27
9.5 6.5 8.5 9.5 10.5 14.5 14.5
11 9.5 12.5 10 11.5 12.5 14 267 270
9.5 9 10.5 12 10 13 13 270-A

Fig. 1. A typical RSS map (1 m step in both north and east 266 268
directions).
265 264
eliminated through a differential operation. The rest of the 263
paper is organized as follows. In section II, the principal of 260
electromagnetic wave propagation is discussed. Section III 262
254
covers the indoor location positioning systems and d1
summarizes their advantages and disadvantages. The 261 253
d2
proposed location positioning method is described in section 259 A B
IV and experimental results are discussed in section V and
finally the conclusions are summarized in section VI.

II. ELECTROMAGNETIC SIGNAL PROPAGATION
In free space under ideal conditions the power received by
a receiver antenna is described by Friis transmission equation
[ 5] as follows:
Pr (dBm )  Pt (dBm )  Gt (dBi )  Gr (dBi )
(1)
 20 log(dBm )  20 log d
Where Pr is the available power at the receiver’s antenna
terminals, Pt is the power delivered to the transmitter’s
antenna, Gt and Gr are the antenna gain of the transmitter
and receiver antennas respectively, λ is the wavelength and d
is the distance. Friis equation provides a good estimation
when there is a line of sight between transmitter and receiver.
However, in indoor environments the power of the received
signal is affected by reflection, diffraction and scattering.
Intense research [6, 7] to model radio wave propagation in
urban areas resulted in various empirical models. The log-
distance model [8] describes the large-scale behaviour of a
propagation link quite well in indoor environments in which
the power of the received signal is expressed by:
Pr (dBm)  Pt (dBm)  Gt (dBi)  Gr (dBi)
(2)
 20  log  / 4   10  n  log d  X a
Where n  2 for free space and is generally a higher
exponent in indoor spaces. This factor is mainly influenced
by surroundings and the building type. X a is a normal
random variable with zero mean in dB representing the
257
258 257 256 255 252 251
Fig. 2. A pair of differential access point placed in a
room inside Essex Hall building for location positioning
multipath wave propagation effects. The RSS not only
changes with the environmental factors but it is also a
function of the orientation of the receiver’s antenna with
respect to the access points. The relative orientation of the
receiver and transmitter antennas affects the gain specified by
Gt and Gr in (2).
III. INDOOR WI-FI BASED LOCATION POSITION
Location positioning in Wi-Fi based systems is performed
in two phases of (a) training phase and (b) estimation phase.
In the training phase, the signal strengths of the access points
at certain locations in the area of interest are measured and a
radio map, also called fingerprint, is constructed. In the
estimation phase, the vector of received signal samples is
compared to the signature vectors in the radio-map and the
“nearest” match is returned as the estimated location of the
receiver. For the purpose of accurate location estimation, the
radio-map has to be updated to incorporate the changes in the
environmental factors. However, the procedure of data
collection for a radio map is labour intensive and cannot be
repeated on short-term basis. To overcome this problem, a
method based on reference tags is proposed [9, 10] in which
reference tags are installed in known locations in the area.

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 positioning in 20 trails
between X a1 and X a 2 are minimized. Therefore the
(a) difference between the received signal strengths can be
estimated by:
No. of correct

d2
Pr1  Pr 2  10n log  (5)
d1
Where   X a1  X a 2 . From Equation (5) it can be observed
that the effect of antenna orientation is entirely removed and
Actual location of samples the effect of multipath is significantly reduced. The
differential received power is mainly determined by the
positioning in 20 trails

(b) number of blocks and the distances between the receiver and
the access points.
No. of correct

B. Search Algorithm
Various search algorithms [11-14] have been proposed in
the literature to find the best match for an RSS in a radio map
database. To examine the effects of differential access points
Actual location of samples on location estimation, a search algorithm based on the
Probability Density Function (PDF) of RSS [15] was adopted
Fig. 3. Number of correct positioning in 20 trials.(a) Using in which the RSS signature is generated from the PDF of the
single access points. (b) Using differential access points
received signal strengths as follows:
1 ( ri  Ei ) 2
The radio map is continuously updated according to the P( ri )  exp{ 2
} i  1,2,, N (6)
signal strength received from reference tags reducing the 2i
2 2 i
location estimation error. The large number of required tags Where ri is the received signal strength from the i-th AP,  i
in this method limits its application. On average, one
reference tag per few square meters is needed to get is the standard deviation (in dB) of ri , Ei is the long-term
necessary input data to generate an accurate radio map. The median (in dB) and N is the number of APs. Using this
principal of operation using received signal strength of an method, each location in the area of interest is represented by
access point is illustrated in Fig. 1. a vector of PDFs in the radio map. The location of the
It can be seen that different locations are characterized by receiver is where the mean squared error is reduced to its
the same RSS values if just one access point is used for minimum level.
location positioning. For higher accuracy, several access
points are needed to generate a database in which each V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
location is uniquely represented by an RSS signature.
To examine the accuracy of the proposed localization
method, the radio map of Essex Hall at the University of
IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED METHOD Windsor is obtained. The area was divided into grids of 2m²
A. Differential Access Points and the RSS signatures of each location was generated by
The undesired environmental effects on received signal taking the average of 100 RSS measured samples at 10pm
strength can significantly be reduced through a differential when almost no one walking around and blocking the
operation using differential access points. To illustrate the propagation path. Two different radio maps were generated,
method assume two access points of A and B are placed at one based on the signal strength received from single-ended
distances of d1 and d2 from a receiver (Fig. 2.) inside a APs and the other one based on the RSS of differential access
building. The strength of the received signals from the two points. The PDF search algorithm was employed to determine
access points are given by: the positions in both cases. The results of location estimation
using single ended APs for 10 consecutive grids are shown in

Pr1  Pt1  Gt1  Gr  20 log  10n log d1  X a1 (3) Fig. 3(a). As compared to an ideal positioning system, this
4 method of localization produces an average error of “2.4m”
 with standard deviation of “0.9m”. The same experiment was
Pr 2  Pt 2  Gt 2  Gr  20 log  10n log d 2  X a 2 (4)
4 repeated using differential APs. The estimated results in Fig.
For a pair of similar access points placed in a short distance 3(b) show a noticeable improvement over the results obtained
from each other Gt1  Gt 2 , Pt1  Pt 2 . If the two access point via single ended APs. Fig. 4 shows the error produced by
each method for 20 grids. It can be seen that the average of
are positioned such that the number of building blocks
between them and the receiver remains equal, the difference the error is reduced by an average error of “1.3m” with
258

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Fig. 4. Location estimation error for 20 consecutive grids
using single-ended AP and differential APs methods
standard deviation of “0.4m” using differential APs. The
maximum positioning error reaches to 5m in single ended AP
configuration. This variation is much lower and drops from
the maximum of 5m to 2m when differential access points are
used for positioning. To show the robustness of the proposed
method against antenna orientation an experiment is
conducted in which, a receiver was placed in a known
position and then rotated in steps of 45°. The signatures of the
RSS were recorded in one full rotation. Fig. 5. shows the
estimated positioning error due to a receiver antenna
orientation using single-ended and differential APs. It can be
seen that the positioning error is considerably lower when
RSS of differential APs are used for location estimation. This
is an expected result since the effects of antenna orientation is
strongly damped through a differential operation.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The strength of received Wi_Fi signals in indoor
environments is affected by multipath, reflection, refraction
and changes in the surrounding area. These effects increase
the error of location positioning using RSS as a basis for
distance estimation. In this paper a new method utilizing
differential access points is introduced to reduce the adverse
effects of environmental factors on location estimation.
Experimental results using differential access points indicate
that the location estimation error is reduced dramatically in
comparison to conventional location positioning using single
ended access points.
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Fig. 5. Estimated positioning error due to antenna
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