IMHPS: IoT-Enabled Mobile Hotspot Positioning System for Smarthome Applications

Large-scale efforts used in designing smarter homes enriching personal comforts point toward a need for innovative smart home applications and frameworks. The continuous operation of IoT-enabled devices at home, especially surveillance-based home security systems or air quality monitoring units, promotes the utilization of mobile hotspots in addition to the traditional broadband-based Wi-Fi networks. However, identifying the locality of placing mobile hotspots is remaining a challenge in the existing smart home infrastructures while executing smart home applications. In this article, an IoT-Enabled Mobile Hotspot Positioning System (IMHPS) is proposed to automatically calculate the signal strength of mobile hotspots while establishing connectivity with IoT-enabled smart home devices. The Connectivity Scanner (CS) component of the proposed IMHPS published signal strengths of mobile hotspots to appropriate subscribers in real-time. Experiments were carried out in a smart home environment to study the efficiency of the proposed IMHPS system. The utilization of tiny microcontrollers in the CS component of the proposed IMHPS was evaluated by varying core CPU frequencies. The proposed IMHPS approach notified users about the signal quality of access points based on the placement locations of mobile hotspots. Additionally, a comparative analysis of different CS solutions was illustrated in the article – i.e., ESP32-Wrover-B-based CS component achieved an improvement of 60 milliseconds when operated with 240 MHz instead of 80 MHz.