Path-Loss-Based Fingerprint Localization Approach for Location-Based Services in Indoor Environments

Wireless local area network fingerprint-based indoor localization schemes have been widely studied because of the increasing requirements of location-based services (LBSs). The features of fingerprint based localization are known to have higher precision in indoor environments than traditional methods, such as triangulation. However, the precision depends on the amount of pre-created received signal strength (RSS) fingerprints, which is associated with the number of reference points (RPs) of the RSS measurements and the available signal sources in the environment. In this paper, we consider the resource limitations of todays' wireless environment and propose an improved fingerprint-based localization approach that adapts a path loss model for fingerprint creation and localization. Based on the proposed approach, we present two related localization schemes. The first is a path-loss-based fingerprint localization (PFL) scheme and the second is a dual-scanned fingerprint localization (DFL) scheme. The PFL attempts to improve positioning precision, and the DFL attempts to guarantee positioning reliability. Several simulations are performed, and they show that the proposed schemes improve the positioning precision and reliability in resource-limited environments, which would improve the practicability of fingerprint-based localizations in indoor LBSs.