Implementation of the Passive-TDOA algorithm on COTS WiFi devices

Description

Nowadays, indoor positioning is a still an open issue. The main reason, though not the only one, is that location indoors require accurate measurements, i.e. positioning errors of 1 to 2 meters in average. There are technologies, such as those based in ultra wideband (UWB) that are able to provide positions with only centimeters of uncertainty. However, those technologies require custom network and user equipment to work, which often make them costly and hard to deploy.

Lots of efforts have been addressed to use communication networks for location purposes. However, the problem then is that positioning errors rise (noticeably) over the 2 meters.

In the recent past, a new location technique for WiFi networks have been presented: passive TDOA. This technique uses the concept of 2-way TOA to compute the time of flight of WiFi signals, but in a passive way (i.e. without injecting location traffic).

This technique has been assessed under simulation, reporting good performance.

Then it has been implemented in the top of the WiFi Linux protocol stack (i.e. in the SoftMAC module). Although the results are good enough for indoor positioning under dark areas, they are far from what it's expected from simulation results. This is due to the latency generated on traversing the WiFi protocol stack. This project tries to overcome that limitation.

Objectives

The goal of this project is to implement the passive TDOA technique embedded in the firmware a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) devices based on Broadcom hardware.

The second objective would be providing a set of tools to control and retrieve the measurements captured by the firmware, so that they can be used by any third piece of software interested in.

Finally an assessment of the quality of the reported measurements will be done.

Period

Start date: --
End date: --
Status: Open

Funding

No funding is provided for this project.

Participants

Supervisor: Israel Martin Escalona (GRXCA)

Student: To be assigned.

Further information

No additional information is provided.