802.11 positioning using signal strength fingerprinting

Abstract

The effectiveness of location aware applications is dependent on the accuracy of the supporting positioning system. This work evaluates the accuracy of an indoors 802.11 positioning system based on signal strength fingerprinting. The system relies on an empirical survey of signal strength prior to positioning. During this survey, signal strength recordings are made at a set of positions across the environment. These recordings are used as training data for the system during positioning. In this thesis, two surveying methods, five positioning algorithms, and two spatial output averaging methods are trialled. Accuracy is determined by empirical testing in two separate environments: a 100m square domestic house and the 1,333m square third floor of the University of New South Wales Computer Science and Engineering building. In the two environments, the lowest mean distance errors are 1.25m and 2.86m respectively.