Wireless local area network positioning

  • Authors:
  • Ophir Tanz;Jeremy Shaffer

  • Affiliations:
  • Carnegie Mellon University;Carnegie Mellon University

  • Venue:
  • Ambient Intelligence for Scientific Discovery
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

The ability to determine the location of a mobile device is a challenge that has persistently evaded technologists. Although solutions to this problem have been extensively developed, none provide the accuracy, range, or cost-effectiveness to serve as a solution over a large urban area. The Global Positioning System (GPS) does not work well indoors or in urban environments. Infrared based systems require line-of-site, are costly to install and do not perform well in direct sunlight [1]. Cellular network-based positioning systems are limited by cell size and also do not work well indoors [23]. The list goes on. With the rise of Wireless Internet, or WiFi as it is commonly dubbed, the best infrastructure for location awareness to date has been created. WiFi is standardized, inexpensive to deploy, easy to install and a default component in a wide-range of consumer devices. These characteristics are the drivers behind WiFi's most significant trait: increasing ubiquity. By developing within the existing 802.11 infrastructure, developers can leverage WiFi to create wide-spread context-aware services.