Position Determination using multiple wireless interfaces

Abstract: This Master’s thesis studies different ways of exploiting the signal strength measurements from wireless interfaces for position determination. Difficulties include handling the fluctuating observations and their sensitivity to obstruction. We list important factors to take into account before describing a new system based on location fingerprinting and capable of integrating observations from multiple wireless interfaces. Compared to typical fingerprinting solutions, the training time is an order of magnitude shorter, but the location resolution is limited to locations of particular interest. In an office environment, the proposed solution determines the location correctly 80 percent of the time with sufficient precision for being used with context-aware services. In an open space environment, an incorrect location is reported 42 percent of the time.