Henri Nurminen

Particle filter and smoother for indoor localization

We present a real-time particle filter for 2D and 3D hybrid indoor positioning. It uses wireless local area network (WLAN) based position measurements, step and turn detection from a hand-held inertial sensor unit, floor plan restrictions, altitude change measurements from barometer and possibly other measurements such as occasional GNSS fixes. We also present a particle smoother, which uses future measurements to improve the position estimate for non-real-time applications. A light-weight fallback filter is run in the background for initialization, divergence monitoring and possibly re-initialization. In real-data tests the particle filter is more accurate and consistent than the methods that do not use floor plans. An example is shown on how smoothing helps to improve the filter estimate. Moreover, a floor change case is presented, in which the filter is capable of detecting the floor change and improving the 2D accuracy using the floor change information.

Statistical path loss parameter estimation and positioning using RSS measurements in indoor wireless networks

A Bayesian method for dynamical off-line estimation of the position and path loss model parameters of a WLAN access point is presented. Two versions of three different on-line positioning methods are tested using real data. The tests show that the methods that use the estimated path loss parameter distributions with finite precisions outperform the methods that only use point estimates for the path loss parameters. They also outperform the coverage area based positioning method and are comparable in accuracy with the fingerprinting method. Taking the uncertainties into account is computationally demanding, but the Gauss-Newton optimization method is shown to provide a good approximation with computational load that is reasonable for many real-time solutions.

Robust Inference for State-Space Models with Skewed Measurement Noise

Filtering and smoothing algorithms for linear discrete- time state-space models with skewed and heavy-tailed measurement noise are presented. The algorithms use a variational Bayes approximation of the posterior distribution of models that have normal prior and skew- t-distributed measurement noise. The proposed filter and smoother are compared with conventional low- complexity alternatives in a simulated pseudorange positioning scenario. In the simulations the proposed methods achieve better accuracy than the alternative methods, the computational complexity of the filter being roughly 5 to 10 times that of the Kalman filter.

Statistical path loss parameter estimation and positioning using RSS measurements

An efficient Bayesian method for off-line estimation of the position and the path loss model parameters of a base station is presented. Two versions of three different on-line positioning methods are tested using real data collected from a cellular network. The tests confirm the superiority of the methods that use the estimated path loss parameter distributions compared to the conventional methods that only use point estimates for the path loss parameters. Taking the uncertainties into account is computationally demanding, but the Gauss-Newton optimization methods is shown to provide a good approximation with computational load that is reasonable for many real-time solutions.

Received signal strength models for WLAN and BLE-based indoor positioning in multi-floor buildings

This paper investigates the similarities and differences of the signal strength fluctuations and positioning accuracy in indoor scenarios for three types of wireless area networks: two Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency, respectively, and one Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN), namely the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Two path-loss models based on weighted centroids and non-negative least squares estimation are presented: one including a floor loss factor, and the other one ignoring the floor losses, and the three signal types are compared in terms of the path-loss parameters, channel fluctuations and positioning accuracy, namely the distance errors and floor detection probabilities. The comparison is done based on real-field measurement data collected from a university building in Tampere, Finland. It is shown that all these three signal types have similar shadowing variances and close path-loss parameter values, and that a path-loss model considering floor losses gives the best floor detection probability, but not necessarily the smallest distance error.

A NLOS-robust TOA positioning filter based on a skew-t measurement noise model

A skew-t variational Bayes filter (STVBF) is applied to indoor positioning with time-of-arrival (TOA) based distance measurements and pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR). The proposed filter accommodates large positive outliers caused by occasional non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions by using a skew-t model of measurement errors. Real-data tests using the fusion of inertial sensors based PDR and ultra-wideband based TOA ranging show that the STVBF clearly outperforms the extended Kalman filter (EKF) in positioning accuracy with the computational complexity about three times that of the EKF.

Kalman filter with a linear state model for PDR+WLAN positioning and its application to assisting a particle filter

Indoor positioning based on wireless local area network (WLAN) signals is often enhanced using pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) based on an inertial measurement unit. The state evolution model in PDR is usually nonlinear. We present a new linear state evolution model for PDR. In simulated-data and real-data tests of tightly coupled WLAN-PDR positioning, the positioning accuracy with this linear model is better than with the traditional models when the initial heading is not known, which is a common situation. The proposed method is computationally light and is also suitable for smoothing. Furthermore, we present modifications to WLAN positioning based on Gaussian coverage areas and show how a Kalman filter using the proposed model can be used for integrity monitoring and (re)initialization of a particle filter.

Gaussian mixture filter allowing negative weights and its application to positioning using signal strength measurements

This paper proposes a novel Gaussian Mixture Filter (GMF) that allows components with negative weights. In the case of a ring-shaped likelihood function, the new filter keeps the number of components low by approximating the likelihood as a Gaussian mixture (GM) of two components, one with positive and the other with negative weight. In this article, the filter is applied to positioning with received signal strength (RSS) based range measurements. The filter is tested using simulated measurements, and the tests indicate that the new GMF outperforms the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) in both accuracy and consistency.

Motion model for positioning with graph-based indoor map

This article presents a training-free probabilistic pedestrian motion model that uses indoor map information represented as a set of links that are connected by nodes. This kind of structure can be modelled as a graph. In the proposed model, as a position estimate reaches a link end, the choice probabilities of the next link are proportional to the total link lengths (TLL), the total lengths of the subgraphs accessible by choosing the considered link alternative. The TLLs can be computed off-line using only the graph, and they can be updated if training data are available. A particle filter in which all the particles move on the links following the TLL-based motion model is formulated. The TLL-based motion model has advantageous theoretical properties compared to the conventional models. Furthermore, the real-data WLAN positioning tests show that the positioning accuracy of the algorithm is similar or in many cases better than that of the conventional algorithms. The TLL-based model is found to be advantageous especially if position measurements are used infrequently, with 10-second or more time intervals.

A Survey on Wireless Transmitter Localization Using Signal Strength Measurements

Knowledge of deployed transmittersź (Tx) locations in a wireless network improves many aspects of network management. Operators and building administrators are interested in locating unknown Txs for optimizing new Tx placement, detecting and removing unauthorized Txs, selecting the nearest Tx to offload traffic onto it, and constructing radio maps for indoor and outdoor navigation. This survey provides a comprehensive review of existing algorithms that estimate the location of a wireless Tx given a set of observations with the received signal strength indication. Algorithms that require the observations to be location-tagged are suitable for outdoor mapping or small-scale indoor mapping, while algorithms that allow most observations to be unlocated trade off some accuracy to enable large-scale crowdsourcing. This article presents empirical evaluation of the algorithms using numerical simulations and real-world Bluetooth Low Energy data.