Location based services in WLANs

Introduction:

Mobile Positioning is the problem of determining the position of a Mobile Station (and thereby the user) using location sensitive network parameters. Inexpensive and still accurate Mobile Station (MS) positioning systems are of great commercial importance since it is the key requirement to provide a wide range of location based services over a mobile network.

A mobile positioning system based on GSM networks could use several technologies such as Cell ID, angle and time of arrival methods and fingerprinting methods.

Among these, fingerprinting methods could be easily implemented and outperform all the other methods. Several fingerprinting based positioning techniques have been developed in previous studies for positioning in WLANs.

Objective:

The objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of different fingerprinting based positioning techniques in WLANs and implement one such technique using Matlab/Simulink.

Statement of the problem and tasks:

• The major drawback with fingerprinting techniques is the creation and maintenance of a fingerprint database using real time measurements. In terms of time and effort considered, it is suggested in this project to use a suitable propagation model to create the fingerprints. Thus the predicted Received Signal Strength (RSS) could be used as the fingerprint variable.

Using a suitable propagation model to create the fingerprints with an adequate resolution it is expected to identify a suitable method for positioning (preferably with some improvements on current methods to obtain more accurate results).

• Literature survey on mobile positioning techniques with special emphasis on fingerprinting based localization methods for WLANs.

• Implement one algorithm in Matlab.