VOR base stations for indoor 802.11 positioning

ABSTRACT

Angle of arrival (AOA) has previously been used for outdoor positioning in aircraft navigation and for services like E911. For indoor positioning, the best schemes to date rely either on extensive infrastructure, or on sampling of the signal strength on a dense grid, which is subject to changes in the environment, like furniture, elevators, or people. We present an indoor positioning architecture that does not require a signal strength map, simply requiring the placement of special VOR base stations (VORBA). While our incipient realization of the AOA using 802.11 uses a base station with a revolving directional antenna, a non mechanical implementation would yield comparable performance, even with quantized angles. Performance of positioning with VOR base stations is evaluated though experimentation, simulation, and theoretical analysis.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.2 Network Protocols
          Subjects: Applications (SMTP, FTP, etc.)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation

Keywords:
802.11, AOA, VOR, VORBA, indoor positioning, ranging