Leveraging WLAN Infrastructure for Large-Scale Indoor Tracking

In this paper, we present a tracking system based on wireless local area network infrastructure that is capable of simultaneously tracking numerous and diverse mobile clients (i.e., cell phones, laptops, personal digital assistants and alike) in multistory buildings within a campus facility at a near real time resolution and without client software to be installed. The tracking system is part of a location-based services platform called “Digital Graffiti” that amongst others serves as visualization frontend and encapsulates user- and privileges management to sustain security and privacy. In the course of a real-life project at the campus of the University of Linz (accessible for all students, teachers and visitors), we have been demonstrating the feasibility of our tracking system in a beta test period since January 2010 and contribute our first results.