Wi-Fi positioning: System considerations and device calibration

Due to an increasing number of public and private access points in indoor and urban environments, Wi-Fi positioning becomes more and more attractive for pedestrian navigation. In the last ten years different approaches and solutions have been developed. But Wi-Fi hardware and network protocols have not been designed for positioning. Therefore, Wi-Fi devices have different hardware characteristics that lead to different positioning accuracies. In this article we analyze and discuss hardware characteristics of Wi-Fi devices with a focus on the so called Wi-Fi fingerprinting technique for positioning. The analysis is based on measurements collected using a static setup in an anechoic chamber to minimize signal reflections and noise. Characteristics like measurement offsets and practical polling intervals of different mobile devices have been examined. Based on this analysis a calibration approach to compensate the measurement offsets of Wi-Fi devices is proposed. Experimental results in a typically office building are presented to evaluate the improvement in localization accuracy using the calibration approach.