An Indoor Wireless LAN Location Determination System

Abstract

As pervasive computing becomes more popular, the need for context-aware applica-tions increases. The context of an application refers to the information that is part of its operating environment, in which the physical location of the user is an important compo-nent. While traditional Global Positioning System (GPS) are mainly used to detect the location information in outdoor environment, precise, easy-to-build, and easy-to-use in-door location determination systems are still needed. So we focus our efforts on develop-ing an Indoor Location Determination System. In this thesis, a RF-based Indoor Location Determination System implemented in the context of IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN (WLAN) is presented. The system structure and implementation procedure are described. Five algorithms on determining the mobile cli-ent’s location in the system are raised in this thesis and they are implemented. Real-world experiments are conducted to evaluate the reliability and performance of these algorithms under different parameter settings. The experiments show that the forth and fifth algo-rithm can achieve satisfying results for this system.