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A Novel Wireless Positioning System for Seamless Internet Connectivity based on the WLAN Infrastructure

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Abstract

Nowadays, several positioning systems are available for outdoor localization, such as the global positioning system (GPS), assisted GPS (A-GPS), and other systems working on cellular networks, for example, time difference of arrival (TDOA), angle of arrival (AOA) and enhanced observed time difference of arrival (E-OTD). However, with the increasing use of mobile computing devices and an expansion of wireless local area networks (WLANs), there is a growing interest in indoor wireless positioning systems based on the WLAN infrastructure. Wireless positioning systems (WPS) based on this infrastructure can be used for indoor localization to determine the position of mobile users. In this paper, we present a novel wireless positioning system, based on the IEEE 802.11b standard, using a novel access point (AP) with two transceivers to improve the performance of WPS in terms of accuracy of the location estimation and to avoid service connectivity interruption. In our proposed system, the novel AP uses the second transceiver to find information from neighboring mobile stations (STAs) in the transmission range and then sends information in advance to associated APs, which estimate the location of the STA based on an internal database. We also use a TDOA technique to estimate the location of the STA when there is not enough information in the database (in this case, the STA moves into a new area where the system has not run the calibration phase). Using TDOA, the database can be generated and updated automatically. The initial results from our simulations show that the proposed system provides higher accuracy of location estimation than other related work and does not interrupt the Internet connection for end users in contrast with other proposed schemes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIKI Lab, The University of Electro Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu-shi, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan

    Thavisak Manodham & Tetsuya Miki

  2. NTT Docomo Communications Laboratories, Europe GmbH, Landsbergerstr. 312, 80687, Munich, Germany

    Luis Loyola

Authors
  1. Thavisak Manodham
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  2. Luis Loyola
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  3. Tetsuya Miki
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Correspondence to Thavisak Manodham.

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Manodham, T., Loyola, L. & Miki, T. A Novel Wireless Positioning System for Seamless Internet Connectivity based on the WLAN Infrastructure. Wireless Pers Commun 44, 295–309 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-007-9373-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-007-9373-1

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