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Selective RF Fingerprint Scanning for Large-Scale Wi-Fi Positioning Systems

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Abstract

Rapid growth in mobile communication and the proliferation of smartphones have drawn significant attention to location-based services (LBSs). One of the most important factors in the vitalization of LBSs is the accurate position estimation of a mobile device. The traditional global positioning system method has a critical weakness in terms of its limited availability, e.g., in indoor environments. The Wi-Fi positioning system is an attractive method that measures received signal strength indication data from all Wi-Fi access points (APs) and stores them in a huge database in the form of a radio frequency (RF) fingerprint map. Because of the millions of APs in urban areas, RF fingerprints are easily contaminated and transfigured. For this reason, a frequent rescanning of fingerprints is essential for fingerprint data integrity. However, rescanning fingerprints for an entire area requires a considerable amount of cost and effort. Therefore, we present a selective fingerprint rescan method for efficient fingerprint map management. All fingerprint data used in the developed test-bed are harvested from actual radio fingerprint measurements taken throughout Seoul, Korea, to demonstrate the practical usefulness of the proposed methodology.

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Acknowledgments

This research work is supported by SK Telecom, South Korea. All data are collected using the facility of SK Telecom. This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Korean Government (2011-0011825).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering, Ajou University, 206 World Cup-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, 443-749, Korea

    Jae-Hoon Kim

  2. Department of Information and Communications Engineering, Sejong University, 98 Gunja-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 143-747, Korea

    Woon-Young Yeo

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Correspondence to Woon-Young Yeo.

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Kim, JH., Yeo, WY. Selective RF Fingerprint Scanning for Large-Scale Wi-Fi Positioning Systems. J Netw Syst Manage 23, 902–919 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-014-9318-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-014-9318-4

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