An indoor positioning method using IEEE 802.11 channel state information

In this paper, we propose an indoor positioning system that makes use of the attenuation model for IEEE 802.11 Channel State Information (CSI) in order to determine its distance from an Access Point (AP) at a fixed position. With the use of CSI, we can mitigate the problems present in the use of Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) data and increase the accuracy of the estimated mobile device’s location. For the experiments we performed, we made use of the Intel 5300 Series Network Interface Card (NIC) in order to receive the channel frequency response. The Intel 5300 NIC differs from its counterparts in that it can obtain not only the RSSI but also the CSI between an access point and a mobile device. We can obtain the signal strengths and phases from subcarriers of a system which in turn means making use of this data in the estimation of a mobile device’s position.