Improving location awareness in indoor spaces using RFID technology

Location awareness is a key issue to improve the development of autonomous entities that are embedded into ubiquitous computing environments. GPS seems to be the best solution to develop outdoor location systems, but the performance of these systems is not good enough to locate objects or humans within indoor environments, mainly if accuracy and precision are required. In this article we propose the use of a cheap and reliable technology as RFID to develop a passive RFID-based indoor location system that is able to accurately locate autonomous entities, such as robots and people, within a defined surface. This system is applied to solve the robot tracking problem. We include the evaluation of the proposal by comparing our system technology performance with other alternatives built on different technologies (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IrDA, ultrasound, etc.). We have also performed a location awareness proof concept test to analyze the viability of the approach.     

室内定位技术分析

对位置信息的识别是普适计算中的一个重要研究领域,其中大多教的应用都是在室内环境下.介绍位置识别的一般技术与方法,展示目前在室内定位领域兵有代表性的研究性和商业性的定位系统,分析各种技术的长处及其局限性,提出今后的研究方向.     

A smartphone-based multimodal indoor tracking system

The great popularity of smartphones, together with the increasingly important aim of providing context-aware services, has spurred interest in developing indoor tracking systems. Accurate tracking and localization systems are seen as key services for most context-aware applications. Research projects making use of radio signals detected by radio interfaces and the data captured by sensors commonly integrated in most smartphones have already shown promising and better results than location solutions based on a single data source. In this paper, we present a multi-sensor tracking system built by incrementally integrating state-of-the-art models of the Wi-Fi interface and the accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors of a smartphone. Our proposal consists of a simple calibration phase of the tracking system, which involves enabling simultaneous data gathering from all three sensors and the Wi-Fi interface. Taking the Wi-Fi signal model as baseline, four different configurations are evaluated by incrementally adding and integrating the models of the other three sensors. The experimental results reveal a mean error accuracy of 60 cm in the case when the tracking system makes use of all four data sources. Our results also include a spatial characterization of the accuracy and processing power requirements of the proposed solution. Our main findings demonstrate the feasibility of developing accurate localization indoor tracking systems using current smartphones without the need for additional hardware.     

MRILoc: Multiresolution Indoor Localization from crowdsourced samples

The demand of Wi-Fi fingerprinting-based indoor localization has been growing steadily for its open-source and low-cost infrastructure. Since site survey is tedious and costly, crowdsourcing is becoming a typical practice for fingerprint database construction. However, erroneous location annotation and non-uniform sample density need to be addressed in sample crowdsourcing. Furthermore, the traditional massive fingerprint databases in large and complex indoor environments require longer processing time and extensive computational complexity, limiting their efficiency and scalability. We propose a Multiresolution Indoor Localization from crowdsourced samples (MRILoc) system to address these challenges. The MRILoc consists of three major offline modules and a new online hierarchical and multiresolution localization algorithm. Firstly, we designe a Sample Reliability Measure Algorithm (SRMA) to identify reliable crowdsourced samples. Secondly, we construct weighted surfaces using reliable fingerprints and downsample fingerprints at the center of grids to resolve the issue of the non-uniform sample density. Thirdly, we construct hierarchical training databases for multiresolution localization. Our online algorithm integrates the K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) to classify a test sample in different resolution subareas and uses XGBoost regression for the final exact localization approximation if necessary. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we conduct experiments on two field measurement datasets. The experiment results show a high average hitting rate and 19% localization accuracy improvement over the peer schemes.     

Spatio-temporal adaptive indoor positioning using an ensemble approach

We present a fingerprinting-based Wi-Fi indoor positioning method robust against temporal fluctuations and spatial instability in Wi-Fi signals. An ensemble is created using randomized weak position estimators, with the estimators specialized to different areas in the target environment and designed so that each area has estimators that rely on different subsets of stable APs. When conducting positioning, we cope with spatial instability by dynamically adjusting the weights of the weak estimators depending on the user’s estimated location and cope with temporal fluctuations by dynamically adjusting the weights based on a periodic assessment of their performance using a particle filter tracker.     

Wi-Fi fingerprinting based on collaborative confidence level training

Wi-Fi fingerprinting has been a popular indoor positioning technique with the advantage that infrastructures are readily available in most urban areas. However wireless signals are prone to fluctuation and noise, introducing errors in the final positioning result. This paper proposes a new fingerprint training method where a number of users train collaboratively and a confidence factor is generated for each fingerprint. Fingerprinting is carried out where potential fingerprints are extracted based on the confidence factor. Positioning accuracy improves by 40% when the new fingerprinting method is implemented and maximum error is reduced by 35%.     

普适环境室内定位系统研究

位置感知服务是普适计算的一类重要应用。在位置感知服务中,位置信息是关键的上下文之一。如何获取位置上下文,是位置感知服务中的关键点之一。基于不同的应用背景和服务,目前已经存在大量的定位系统。从室内定位的角度,研究了定位系统中的关键技术和方法,并对各种技术进行了分析比较;在分析现有普适环境下典型的室内定位系统基础上,提出了室内定位系统所面临的挑战。     

The implementation of an IoT-based exercise improvement system

The benefits of exercise have been well known for years. Most people know that they should do more exercise, but they seldom make exercise a top priority. Regular exercise is generally the most important lifestyle change people can make to improve their health, but it is hard for people to sustain a regular exercise program. On the other hand, Internet of Things (IoT) applications, which combine different sensors and information technologies, have developed rapidly over recent years. IoT-based applications for exercise have been examined in recent literature. However, most IoT-based applications focus on the needs of exercisers and ignore the needs of trainers and the relationship between the system usage and the incidence of regular exercise compliance is rarely studied. This study implements an IoT-based exercise improvement system that both exercisers and trainers can use to increase exercisers’ physical fitness. To test the system, 221 students were recruited from a university and their exercise data were collected and analyzed. The results showed that use of an IoT-based exercise improvement system helped regular exercisers maintain their exercise pattern and non-regular exercisers improve their exercise performance.

     

Indoor location based services challenges,requirements and usability of current solutions

Indoor Location Based Services (LBS), such as indoor navigation and tracking, still have to deal with both technical and non-technical challenges. For this reason, they have not yet found a prominent position in people’s everyday lives. Reliability and availability of indoor positioning technologies, the availability of up-to-date indoor maps, and privacy concerns associated with location data are some of the biggest challenges to their development. If these challenges were solved, or at least minimized, there would be more penetration into the user market. This paper studies the requirements of LBS applications, through a survey conducted by the authors, identifies the current challenges of indoor LBS, and reviews the available solutions that address the most important challenge, that of providing seamless indoor/outdoor positioning. The paper also looks at the potential of emerging solutions and the technologies that may help to handle this challenge.     

Improving the accuracy of ultrasound-based localisation systems

We present an improvement to ultrasound-based indoor location systems like Cricket (Priyantha et al. The Cricket location-support system, 2000). By encoding and modulating the ultrasound pulses, we are able to achieve greater accuracy in distance measurements. Besides improving the distance measurements, we improve the position update rate by synchronising the active beacons. We also propose a method that could further improve the update rate by superimposing encoded ultrasound pulses. Further, an experimental evaluation of our improvements is presented.     

融合多模传感器的室内实时高精度轨迹生成

提出了一种融合多模传感器的室内实时高精度轨迹生成方法,亦即将室内Wi-Fi定位与传感器定位结合起来,生成用户在室内移动的实时轨迹。首先由Wi-Fi定位出用户的初始位置,然后结合Wi-Fi定位的结果以及多个传感器的数据,得到用户的运动速度以及方向,通过航迹推算算法得到用户下一时刻的位置,最后对得出的位置坐标进行卡尔曼滤波处理,得到用户的位置坐标,最终生成用户移动的实时轨迹。实验结果表明,该方法可以得到比Wi-Fi定位更为平滑稠密的移动轨迹,且精确度 比其他同类方法更高。     

Internet of surveillance: a cloud supported large-scale wireless surveillance system

Large-scale video surveillance systems are among the necessities for securing our life these days. The high bandwidth demand and the large storage requirements are the main challenges in such systems. To face these challenges, the system can be deployed as a multi-tier framework that utilizes different technologies. In such a framework, technologies proposed under the umbrella of the Internet of Things (IoT) can play a significant rule in facing the challenges. In video surveillance, the cameras can be considered as “the things” that are streaming videos to a central processing and storage server (the cloud) through the Internet. Wireless technologies can be used to connect wireless cameras to the surveillance system more conveniently than wired cameras. Unfortunately, wireless communication in general tend to have limited bandwidth that needs careful management to achieve scalability. In this paper, we design and evaluate a reliable IoT-based wireless video surveillance system that provides an optimal bandwidth distribution and allocation to minimize the overall surveillance video distortion. We evaluate our system using NS-3 simulation. The results show that the proposed framework fully utilizes the available cloud bandwidth budget and achieves high scalability.     

Automated construction of Wi-Fi-based indoor logical location predictor using crowd-sourced photos with Wi-Fi signals

Owing to the recent proliferation of smartphones and the SNS, a large number of images taken by smartphones at various places have been uploaded to SNSs. In addition, smartphones are equipped with various sensors such as Wi-Fi modules that enable us to generate an image associated with the sensory information that represents the context in which the image was captured. This study demonstrates the benefits of images associated with Wi-Fi signals in the automated construction of a Wi-Fi-based indoor logical location classifier that predicts a semantic location label of a user’s position for shopping complexes. In this study, a logical location class refers to the store class label in a shopping complex, such as Starbucks and H&M. Given a collection of images associated with Wi-Fi signals taken at a shopping complex and the complex’s floor plan, the proposed method first estimates the store label at which an image was taken by analyzing the image and crawled online images of branch stores. Then, the 2D coordinates of the images taken at branch stores on the floor coordinate system can be estimated using the floor plan. Subsequently, by using the Wi-Fi signals of the branch store images and their estimated 2D coordinates, we construct a transformation function that maps Wi-Fi signals onto the 2D coordinates, and we adopt this function to predict an indoor location class of an observed Wi-Fi scan from a smartphone possessed by an end user. The proposed transformation function comprises an ensemble of sub-functions designed based on CVAEs. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for three actual shopping complexes.     

Zigbee和Wi-Fi的干扰和共存

Zigbee是近年来出现的一种新兴的短距离无线通信技术,它采用了IEEE802.15.4标准作为其物理层和媒体接入层规范,具有低功耗、低成本和低复杂度的特点.它和Wi-Fi有着不同的应用空间,主要适用于自动控制、远程监控等领域,是Wi-Fi的有效补充.但是由于它们使用的是相同的频段,不可避免地会出现相互之间的干扰.对Zigbee和Wi-Fi的主要特性作了比较,分析了两者产生干扰的原因,在室内环境下具体分析了Zigbee对Wi-Fi的干扰情况,并且提出了两者共存问题的解决方法.     

一种基于视距路径识别的设备无关室内定位算法

Wi-Fi技术的广泛应用和部署催生了许多基于Wi-Fi的室内定位技术。近年来,基于Wi-Fi的设备无关定位算法引起了研究人员的广泛注意。设备无关定位算法不需要目标对象携带无线传输设备,而是通过测量目标对象对无线信号传输的影响来反向推断目标对象的位置。由于不需要目标对象携带相关设备,因此可以广泛应用于多种场合,如老人健康护理等。已有的设备无关定位技术通常需要事先采集训练数据,因此容易受室内复杂多变的环境干扰,导致定位精度下降。 提出一种基于视距路径检测的设备无关定位算法。利用物理层信道状态信息CSI,可以判断一对无线收发设备之间的路径是否是视距LoS路径。在此基础上,提出一个新的设备无关定位算法,该算法在监测区域部署一组Wi Fi收发装置,对任意一对无线设备,通过识别它们之间是否存在视距路径来判断目标对象是否在这对设备的菲涅耳区域内。此外,还提出一种基于投票的方法来获得目标对象的最可能位置。在实际设备上的实验结果表明,该定位算法可以达到0.5 m左右的精度,并且不需事先训练,具有较高的实时性。     

基于智能手机无线信号和图像距离感知融合的室内定位算法

针对于目前面向个人使用的手机室内定位精度低、效果差,且成本较高难以拓展的问题,提出了一种利用普通智能手机作为硬件设备,融合Wi-Fi无线信号和图像数据,通过双层过滤的方式对用户进行高精度室内定位的算法。算法分为线下阶段和线上阶段。在线下阶段,对目标场地建立坐标系,在坐标系多个目标位置进行Wi-Fi采样并建立指纹库,同时对环境进行拍照取样并抽取图像特征。在线上阶段,通过实时获取的Wi-Fi信息进行第一层过滤,以确定当前用户可能的位置区间;然后,结合提出的一种距离补偿算法对用户手机当前捕获的图像进行特征提取,在第一层过滤的基础上,确定用户的精准位置。在实际场地进行的实验表明,相比传统Wi-Fi及二维图像定位方法,该算法能够在探测接入点（AP）数量较少及室内场景相似的情况下提高室内定位精度,可以应用于一般室内定位应用或结合基于位置的服务（LBS）应用。     

基于无线信道状态相位信息优化的定位算法

随着位置服务需求的增长,基于Wi-Fi接收信号的室内定位技术一直是研究热点之一.通过检测环境变化对Wi-Fi无线信道状态信息CSI的影响,从而实现对室内人员的定位具有通用性强、部署成本低等优点.针对大多系统仅使用CSI中幅度信息所带来准确性和稳定性不足的问题,设计并实现了一种基于CSI相位信息优化的定位算法,该方法通过采集幅度和相位参数相结合作为位置指纹特征,并对特征数据进行预先平滑去噪后进行指纹库的构建,然后通过机器学习方法进行人员位置的分类识别.由于相位和幅度信息可以相互补充,弥补了某些易混淆位置的分类错误,从而解决了采用单一特征的定位准确性和稳定性问题.实验进行了两种不同多径场景下的实验,比较了不同指纹特征选取、数据预处理方法以及三种机器学习算法对定位准确度的影响,其结果表明采用本文所提出算法总体上可以在仅使用CSI幅度特征的基础上提高13%.     

面向大数据存储的主动与被动相结合的性能评测方法体系结构与实现

随着数据量的日益增加,大数据存储在整个大数据应用框架体系中居于重要地位.对大数据存储系统进行性能评测可以指导大数据应用开发人员分析性能瓶颈,进行大数据系统的性能优化.在以往的工作中,通常使用基准测试的方式来对不同大数据框架进行性能评测,或者采用插桩并分析轨迹文件的方式对分布式文件系统进行性能分析.这2种方法采用的分析角...     

基于Wi-Fi信道状态信息的行走识别与行走参数估计

行走是日常生活中最常见的行为之一,它的特征可以反映人的身份、健康等重要信息.例如,行走的速度、方向、步数、步长等细粒度的参数可以为室内追踪、步态分析、老人看护等情境感知应用提供关键信息.因此,在近几年中,利用环境中已有的Wi-Fi信号对行走进行感知受到了研究人员的广泛关注.为了利用Wi-Fi信号感知行走,当前的方法都需要进行大量的行走数据采集,通过经验观察或者离线学习,提取信号特征来识别行走以及估计行走参数.由于缺乏理论指导,所提取信号特征较为间接且往往包含与环境和感知目标相关的冗余信息,所以当环境和感知目标发生变化时,系统需要重新进行学习,使其难以被应用于无线环境易变的真实场景中.不同于以往工作,首次在不需要任何预训练的情况下,利用环境中已有的Wi-Fi信号实现了在连续活动中对行走行为的精准识别,并且能够同时精确地估计行走的速度、方向、步数、步长等多维信息,为上层情境感知应用提供关键的上下文信息.特别地,通过分析人在行走过程中产生的多普勒效应和Wi-Fi信道状态信息（channel state information）之间的关系,建立基本的多普勒速度运动模型,揭示了行走行为和信道状态信息变化之间的理论关联.同时,基于该模型,通过多重信号分离（multiple signal classification）算法从信道状态信息中提取出了与环境和感知目标均无关、仅与人运动状态相关的信号特征——多普勒速度.最后,通过深入研究多普勒速度和人的行走真实速度之间的映射关系,提出了基于多普勒速度的行走识别与细粒度的行走参数估计方法,且经过在不同环境中、由不同实验者进行的大量实验也表明了行走识别和行走参数估计方法的准确性和鲁棒性.其中,对于行走识别的准确率达到了95.5%,行走速度大小估计的相对中位误差为12.2%,方向估计的中位误差为9°,步数统计的准确率达90%,步长估计的中位误差为0.12m.