Jeroen Wyffels

Distributed, Signal Strength-Based Indoor Localization Algorithm for Use in Healthcare Environments

In current healthcare environments, a trend toward mobile and personalized interactions between people and nurse call systems is strongly noticeable. Therefore, it should be possible to locate patients at all times and in all places throughout the care facility. This paper aims at describing a method by which a mobile node can locate itself indoors, based on signal strength measurements and a minimal amount of yes/no decisions. The algorithm has been developed specifically for use in a healthcare environment. With extensive testing and statistical support, we prove that our algorithm can be used in a healthcare setting with an envisioned level of localization accuracy up to room revel (or region level in a corridor), while avoiding heavy investments since the hardware of an existing nurse call network can be reused. The approach opted for leads to very high scalability, since thousands of mobile nodes can locate themselves. Network timing issues and localization update delays are avoided, which ensures that a patient can receive the needed care in a time and resources efficient way.

A novel indoor localization system for healthcare environments

This paper proposes a novel indoor localization system, specifically designed for use in healthcare environments. The challenge for this indoor localization project is to decide in which room or in which area of a corridor the blindfolded node is situated, and this with a 100% guarantee that the determined location complies with the actual location of the blindfolded node. We propose a decentralized localization algorithm which uses Received Signal Strength information between the beacons and blindfolded nodes, combined with a smart beacon addressing scheme which is used by the localization algorithm. These beacons are existing access points to a backbone network equipped with a wireless interface. By using a proximity-based approach, we are able to decide where a blindfolded node is situated on a low resource and decentralized basis.

Time of Arrival Based on Chirp Pulses as a means to Perform Localization in IEEE 802.15.4a Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper introduces the technology Time of Arrival (TOA) based on chirp pulses (according to IEEE 802.15.4a) as a means to perform localization in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) ac ...

Using a decision tree for real-time distributed indoor localization in healthcare environments

Decision trees can be of great importance when trying to perform indoor localization on room level basis. These decision trees enable mobile nodes with limited computational resources to locate themselves inside a building without the need of heavy computations. This paper elaborates on the use of a decision tree for tracking moving mobile nodes inside healthcare facilities with possibly thousands of mobile nodes which need to be tracked at the same time. By avoiding a centralized localization attempt for all of the mobile nodes, we prove a distributed localization algorithm based on a decision tree can enable the tracking and tracing of this amount of mobile nodes. The same decision tree is used for determining if indoor localization without Line-Of-Sight between beacons and mobile nodes is feasible, for instance when people are standing between a mobile unit and a fixed beacon.

Influence of Bluetooth Low Energy on WIFI communications and vice versa

In modern mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, multiple wireless communication standards are supported. Since many of those standards operate at the licence free 2.4GHz ISM band, these standards use different modulation schemes and error correcting techniques in order to avoid interference when communicating over a wireless link (WIFI, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy...). For commercial use, these techniques are sufficient, but for industrial or medical use, in perhaps life threatening circumstances, all communications should perform at peak efficiency whilst not influencing each other. In this paper, a case study is presented where a healthcare setting is envisioned in which a WIFI network is deployed and used formedical purposes.We investigate the influence of a lot of transceiving Bluetooth Low Energy devices on theWIFI throughput, and vice versa. Conclusions and suggestions about the coexistance of both standards are also given.