Indoor Localization within Multi-Story Buildings Using MAC and RSSI Fingerprint Vectors

For existing wireless network devices and smart phones to achieve available positioning accuracy easily, fingerprint localization is widely used in indoor positioning, which depends on the differences of the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) from the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) in different places. Currently, most researchers pay more attention to the improvement of online positioning algorithms using RSSI values, while few focus on the MAC (media access control) addresses received from the WLAN. Accordingly, we attempt to integrate MAC addresses and RSSI values simultaneously in order to realize indoor localization within multi-story buildings. A novel approach to indoor positioning within multi-story buildings is presented in this article, which includes two steps: firstly, to identify the floor using the difference of received MAC addresses in different floors; secondly, to implement further localization on the same floor. Meanwhile, clustering operation using MAC addresses as the clustering index is introduced in the online positioning phase to improve the efficiency and accuracy of indoor positioning. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can achieve not only the precise location with the horizontal accuracy of 1.8 meters, but also the floor where the receiver is located within multi-story buildings.