An Indoor Positioning System Using Multiple Methods and Tools

With many different studies showing a growing demand for the development of indoor positioning systems, numerous positioning and tracking methods and tools are available for which can be used for mobile devices. Therefore, an interest is more on development of indoor positioning and tracking systems that are accurate and effective. Presented and proposed in this work, is an indoor positioning system. As opposed to an Ad-hoc Positioning System (APS), it uses a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN). The system makes use of an already existing Wi-Fi infrastructure technology. Moreover, the approach tests the positioning of a node with its neighbours in a mesh network using multi-hopping functionality. The positioning measurements used were the ICMP echos, RSSI and RTS/CTS requests and responses. The positioning method used was the trilateral technique, in combination with the idea of the fingerprinting method. Through research and experimentation, this study developed a system which shows potential as a positioning system with an error of about 2 m to 3 m. The hybridisation of the method proves an enhancement in the system though improvements are still required.