In our research for our KLAS Project, Mark Taipan and I ran across a few interesting articles on Wi-Fi indoor location systems, specifically ones which utilize RFID. One of the most informative research papers was the Sensor-Assisted Wi-Fi Indoor Location System for Adapting to Environmental Dynamics. This paper dealt with adding RFID sensors to a Wi-Fi indoor location system in order to add accuracy. The researchers realized that Wi-Fi location systems are highly susceptible to accuracy variances due to “environmental changes” (e.g. open vs. closed doors, humans absorbing/blocking the signal, and even to changes in humidity). Therefore the system was tested in various cases, with a radio map created for each. The researchers then added RFID sensors to the system to measure the different conditions (e.g. the humidity, how many doors were open vs. closed, etc.). This data was then used to determine which radio map would provide the greatest accuracy for the system at any given time. Because of this adaptation, the system was able to gain overall better accuracy and was less susceptible to these “environmental changes”.

This idea has helped us better understand the concerns and cautions of working with 802.11 Wi-Fi and the accuracy issues that surround it. We therefore recognize that these are issues for which we will have to deal with and thus we plan on compensating for them, either in the manner that was outlined in this paper, or in some other way.

Matthew Lape

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