Proposal for a Localization System for an IoT Ecosystem

Abstract

In the last decade, positioning using wireless signals has gained a lot of attention since it could open new opportunities for service providers. Localization is important, especially in indoor environments, where the widely used global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals suffer from high signal attenuation and multipath propagation, resulting in poor accuracy or a loss of positioning service. Moreover, in an Internet of things (IoT) environment, the implementation of GNSS receivers into devices may result in higher demands on battery capacity, as well as increased cost of the hardware itself. Therefore, alternative localization systems that are based on wireless signals for the communication of IoT devices are gaining a lot of attention. In this paper, we provide a design of an IoT localization system, which consists of multiple localization modules that can be utilized for the positioning of IoT devices that are connected thru various wireless technologies. The proposed system can currently perform localization based on received signals from LoRaWAN, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, UWB and cellular technologies. The implemented pedestrian dead reckoning algorithm can process the data measured by a mobile device that is equipped with inertial sensors to construct a radio map and thus help with the deployment of the positioning services based on a fingerprinting approach.