Dynamic Online-Calibrated Radio

Maps for Indoor Positioning in

Wireless Local Area Networks
Mohamed M. Atia, Member, IEEE, Aboelmagd Noureldin, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Michael J. Korenberg, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractContext-awareness and Location-Based-Services are of great importance in mobile computing environments. Although
fingerprinting provides accurate indoor positioning in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN), difficulty of offline site surveys and the
dynamic environment changes prevent it from being practically implemented and commercially adopted. This paper introduces a novel
client/server-based system that dynamically estimates and continuously calibrates a fine radio map for indoor positioning without extra
network hardware or prior knowledge about the area and without time-consuming offline surveys. A modified Bayesian regression
algorithm is introduced to estimate a posterior signal strength probability distribution over all locations based on online observations
from WLAN access points (AP) assuming Gaussian prior centered over a logarithmic pass loss mean. To continuously adapt to
dynamic changes, Bayesian kernels parameters are continuously updated and optimized genetically based on recent APs
observations. The radio map is further optimized by a fast features reduction algorithm to select the most informative APs. Additionally,
the system provides reliable integrity monitor (accuracy measure). Two different experiments on IEEE 802.11 networks show that the
dynamic radio map provides 2-3m accuracy, which is comparable to results of an up-to-date offline radio map. Also results show the
consistency of estimated accuracy measure with actual positioning accuracy.
Index TermsLocation-dependent and sensitive, support services for mobile computing, probabilistic computation, mobile
environments systems and technologies, localization, radio map/fingerprinting/RSS, WLAN

1 INTRODUCTION
L
OCATION determination in wireless networks is a key
feature of mobile computing environments. To fulfill
most of context-aware applications in a mobile computing
environment, meter-level positioning accuracy indoors/
outdoors is necessary. Although Global Navigation Satellite
Systems (GNSS) [1], [2] can provide sub meter-level
accuracy in open sky provided that four satellites are
visible by a receiver with reliable geometry [1], [2], [3],
GNSS do not work indoors due to signal blockage [2], [3].
Thus, an accurate alternative wireless positioning and
navigation system for indoors and GNSS-denied environ-
ments is needed. Fortunately, the widespread deployment
of IEEE 802.11 WLAN (WiFi) [5], [6], [7] provides free
wireless infrastructure that can be used to build indoor
positioning and navigation systems [8], [9], [10], [11]. Such a
system would have a wide spectrum of applications such as
Location-Based Services (LBS) [12], patients monitoring in
hospitals, rescue management, and security applications
[13], [14]. However, those applications require a meter-level
accuracy that is challenging in indoor areas due to the
complex structures and dynamic nature of indoor environ-
ments that affect the wireless signal propagation character-
istics making it complex and hard to model [10], [15], [16].
This paper introduces a novel adaptive WiFi positioning
system that does not need new or special hardware. The
proposed system does not require offline time-consuming
calibration (radio surveys) phases and does not need prior
knowledge or maps about the building. Additionally, the
system automatically selects the most informative WLAN
access points (AP) to get best positioning in less computa-
tion time. More than that, the proposed system not only
estimates a position, but also provides an accurate integrity
monitoring (confidence factor or error standard deviation
(STDV)) as an accuracy measure of the estimated position.
The key idea that enables the system to provide all the
mentioned features is having each WiFi AP periodically
perform passive scan and send signal strength it measures
from its neighboring APs to a processing unit, which
enabled the system to build dynamic models that can adapt
to environmental changes.
1.1 Overview of Wireless Positioning
Three main categories of wireless positioning techniques
exist [17], [18]; time-based, angle-based, and signal strength
(power-based) techniques. In time-based techniques, range
is estimated based on RF signal time of flight (TOF). Time-
based techniques are usually accurate but they require a
1774 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
. M.M. Atia is with Queens University.
E-mail: mohamed.maher.atia@gmail.com.
. A. Noureldin is with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, PO Box 17000, STN
Forces, Kingston, ON K7K 7B4, Canada.
E-mail: Aboelmagd.Noureldin@rmc.ca.
. M.J. Korenberg is with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Queens University, 19 Union Street, Walter Light Hall,
Rm. 416, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada. E-mail: korenber@queensu.ca.
Manuscript received 12 Oct. 2011; revised 8 Mar. 2012; accepted 30 May
2012; published online 12 June 2012.
For information on obtaining reprints of this article, please send e-mail to:
tmc@computer.org, and reference IEEECS Log Number TMC-2011-10-0561.
Digital Object Identifier no. 10.1109/TMC.2012.143.
1536-1233/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE Published by the IEEE CS, CASS, ComSoc, IES, & SPS
direct Line-of-Sight (LOS) [15], [16], [19] between transmit-
ter and receiver, which is not suitable for indoor scenarios.
Angle-based techniques depend on estimating the angle of
arrival of RF signals from reference transmitters to estimate
the location of a receiver [17], [18]. Unfortunately, this is not
suitable for indoors as well because LOS condition does not
exist in almost all indoor scenarios [15]. Power-based
techniques use signal power (Received Signal Strength or
RSS) changes to estimate distance [17], [18], [11]. Two
power-based methods exist; path loss and fingerprinting
[17], [18], [11]. Path loss method relates the distance from a
transmitter to the received signal power measured by a
receiver. In free space, log-distance path loss models [17],
[18], [20], [21] are commonly used. However, because in
indoor environments LOS condition almost does not exist
and different obstacles may exist on different orientations
around RF transmitters, and due to the path loss model
invariance to receiver orientation [49], it is difficult to model
signal power changes indoors using only a simple
parameterized path loss mathematical formula.
1.2 Fingerprinting, Opportunities and Challenges
According to recent published results and literature surveys
[8], [17], [18], [22], [23], [45], fingerprint methods outper-
form other methods and techniques in indoor positioning
scenarios. It can provide 1-2m accuracy indoors that fulfills
many LBS indoor applications. Fingerprint wireless posi-
tioning method [22], [23] is performed on two phases;
offline phase and online phase. In offline phase, power
patterns received at reference locations in the targeted area
from visible WLAN APs are stored in a database called
radio map. This phase is known as site radio survey. In
online phase, user power pattern (fingerprint) measured by
a WLAN-enabled device is used to conduct a search in the
radio map to estimate a location using a variety of
techniques [17], [18]. The simplest common location
estimation algorithm used in this process is K-Nearest
Neighbors (KNN) [17], [18]. Although this scheme can
achieve meter-accuracy indoors [22], [23], it requires a
dense radio map that accurately copies (rather than
models) the complex signals power characteristics indoors.
Obviously, the offline site survey is impractical time-
consuming process, especially inside large buildings and
dynamic environments such as airports. Additionally, and
due to dynamic environments changes and the possibility
of moving some APs to new locations, the saved radio map
will be out-of-date eventually, and the whole offline site
survey needs to be repeated from time to time, which is
impractical and time consuming as well. These drawbacks
prevent fingerprint wireless positioning systems from being
commercially deployed and adopted.
1.3 An Adaptive Zero-Configuration System
To address these challenges in fingerprinting positioning
techniques, this paper introduces a novel system that
dynamically estimates a fine radio map based on online
signal power observations from the existing WLAN AP
using Gaussian Process regression (GPR) [34], [35], which
is suitable for the RSS complex indoor stochastic char-
acteristics. To reflect most recent changes in the environ-
ment without the need to perform offline site survey, we
propose a modification to the periodic beacon frame sent
by APs to include (at low rates) AP location and RSS from
the other visible APs. Consequently, the system is
continuously aware about recent changes in APs locations
and, without extra network hardware, the system does not
require prior knowledge about the targeted indoor
environment because online periodic observations roughly
model the general shape and distribution of obstacles and
obstructions in the environment.
GPR is performed on up-to-date observations to estimate
AP power profile. AP power profile is defined as AP signal
power (RSS) probability distributions over all locations in
the targeted area with predefined resolution. The radio map
is then constructed by merging all APs power profiles and
applying a fast feature reduction algorithm that selects the
most informative APs to be used in positioning. Addition-
ally, the estimation is continuously verified and corrected in
a background process using few other online APs observa-
tions. Moreover, Gaussian Regression is used to provide a
reliable statistical accuracy measure that is converted into
error STDV in meters providing a reliable integrity
monitoring [30] and enables other navigation systems to
be easily integrated with the proposed system using
filtering algorithms such as Kalman Filter [24] or Particle
Filters [25].
2 RELATED WORK
Recently, many approaches have been proposed to tackle
the problem of dynamic changes and complex RSS
characteristics in indoor environments. In [26], a feedback
system is proposed where an aiding dynamic motion model
is utilized as predictive model to predict the state of a
moving object. In [26], a simplified pedestrian dynamic
motion model was used to predict user states in future.
Based on this prediction model, a Kalman Filter was
developed and positions estimated by traditional finger-
print positioning system were used as an update (measure-
ment model) to the Kalman Filter [24]. The filtered outputs
along with recent RSS values are then taken as a feedback to
update and improve the saved radio map. Similar work is
presented in [49], where a constrained linear Gaussian
pedestrian dynamic motion model is used as a predictive
state probability distribution estimator. A Bayesian Filter is
used to fuse this predictive probability distribution with
probabilistic nonlinear/non-Gaussian measurements up-
dates from an RSS fingerprinting positioning system, and
the feedback from the filter is used to overcome the RSS
variations problem.
Although these methods decrease the effect of signal
strength variations indoors and keep an updated radio
map, they depend on a dynamic motion model, which is not
easy to obtain. Additionally, like any other feedback control
system, any small error in the dynamic motion model will
propagate to the radio map and magnified due to the
existence of the feedback loop, which deteriorates the
accuracy of the entire system significantly in a short time.
Some work has been done to entirely automate the site
survey process [10], [28], [29]. However, these methods
have some drawbacks. For example, in [28], a dynamic
radio map is estimated in a network-based positioning
system provided that a full detailed CAD floor map of the
building is available with details about walls and roofs.
Additionally, a ray tracing simulation software is used. The
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1775
problem with this proposed scheme is that it depends on
the building details and it needs extra network hardware.
This breaks the universality of the system and the ability to
deploy it everywhere evenly and seamlessly. Furthermore,
this scheme uses sniffers that listen to user devices signals,
which limits the scalability of the system if the building is
very large and the number of users is huge.
Another interesting work to eliminate the need for site
survey is the work done in [10] in which an online path loss
model was estimated and applied to estimate the distance
from a mobile receiver to WLAN AP. However, as
mentioned previously, the path loss model is too simple
to accurately cover and model the complex signal power
patterns inside buildings. In [29], an autonomous mobile
robot that is equipped by ultrasound sensors and camera in
addition to WLAN card was used to perform Simultaneous
Localization and Mapping (SLAM) and, hence, record the
signal power patterns with the estimated location to finally
obtain a radio map of the environment in less time.
Obviously this technique requires extra hardware and
errors associated with SLAM will propagate to the resulting
radio map. Additionally, the mobile robot may not be able
to access all the WLAN area due to accessibility limitations
or security regulations.
3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Motivated by the existing research results and challenges,
the objectives of this work are as follows:
. Providing a complete WLAN indoor positioning
system that dynamically constructs radio maps
without need for offline site radio survey
. No prior knowledge or maps about the building or
extra network hardware should be needed or used.
. The system should autonomously and continu-
ously adapt to dynamic environment changes and
signal variations.
. The system should also be able to determine the most
informative WLAN APs to perform best positioning
in less computation time with fewer APs.
. The system must provide reliable integrity monitor-
ing [30] in the form of an accurate error STDV of
position estimations.
. It is also required that the system can be implemen-
ted evenly and easily on any type of WLANs.
. The system should maintain a meter level accuracy
of 1-2 m to fulfill LBS and other indoor positioning
services accuracy requirements.
4 METHODOLOGY
4.1 System Components
System hardware consists of the following main parts:
4.1.1 The WLAN
It consists of multiple APs that broadcast periodically (at a
low rate to avoid overloading the network) a management
frame that contains RSS information for positioning
purposes. The format and method of collecting and sending
these management frames will be described shortly in the
subsequent sections.
4.1.2 A Processing Unit
It can be a centralized computer server or even a mobile
device. It is used to perform the following two processes:
. Construct dynamically a fine radio map from few
online observations broadcasted periodically over
management frames from the existing WLAN APs.
. Process users requests to estimate locations and
error STDV based on current users power pattern
(fingerprint).
4.1.3 A Communication Media
It may be the WLAN itself or the existing corporate TCP/IP
LAN [5], [48], or even the internet. It can be any existing
communication media that can be used to do the following:
. Enables the WLAN APs to send RSS observations to
the processing unit.
. Enables users WLAN-enabled devices to commu-
nicate with the processing unit to obtain a position.
4.1.4 A Mobile User Unit
It is any WLAN-enabled device that can do the following:
. Scan the area for visible APs, decode the APs
beacon frames, and extract RSS information (user
power fingerprint).
. Send user power fingerprint to the processing unit
over the communication media.
. Receive location information from the processing
unit over the communication media.
4.2 System WiFi Prototype
Although the proposed system can be implemented on any
type of WLAN or wireless sensors network, we describe the
system design and implementation on an IEEE 802.11
WLAN (WiFi) and the corporate TCP/IP LAN, which is
connected to the WLAN as the communication media and a
centralized computer server as the basic processing unit
(see Fig. 1). WiFi was selected for system physical
prototyping because it is free and available almost every-
where and it provides TCP/IP LAN and internet con-
nectivity [5], [6]. In our prototype implementation, the
1776 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
Fig. 1. System deployment.
corporate TCP/IP LAN/IEEE 802.11 WLAN has been
utilized as communication media between devices because
this type of network connectivity is available almost
everywhere from small homes and university campuses to
large airports and even cities. Entire cities will be covered
by WiFi soon [47]. Also all new laptops, PCs, and handheld
devices such as cell phones and notebooks are WiFi-enabled
[5], [31], [32], [33]. So, the user unit could be any of these
devices. Furthermore, the selection of WiFi makes the
system more practical and cost-effective because WiFi
hardware is available at low cost.
4.3 IEEE 802.11 WLAN Beacon Frames
AP in WiFi networks is the main wireless connectivity
provider unit. According to the IEEE 802.11 Standards [6],
[7], [33], AP periodically broadcasts a management frame
called beacon frame [6] that can be received and decoded by
WiFi-enabled devices. IEEE 802.11 beacon frame is a
subtype of management frames that contain important
information about the AP. This periodic message is similar
to the periodic message that is broadcasted by satellites to
receivers in a GNSS system [1], [2], [3]. A beacon frame
consists of fixed control segments and a variable length
frame body. Frame body contains fixed section called
noninformation element for more control parameters for
wireless connectivity purposes. The information element
section contains variable-length vendor-specific generic-
purpose data.
According to latest IEEE 802.11 standard document [7], a
total of 142 information elements are currently used and the
remaining 113 information elements are reserved for future
use. Among the important pieces of information sent on
the beacon frame is the Media Access Control (MAC)
address of the AP which is a unique identifier set by the AP
manufacturer. When WiFi-enabled device scan the area for
visible AP, it receives these beacon messages and the WiFi
interface card records the Received Signal Strength Indi-
cator (RSSI).
4.4 Data Acquisition
Power pattern recording is defined as the process of
scanning the area for visible APs and extract their MACs
and their RSSIs. In the traditional offline radio site survey
[17], [18], [23], power pattern recording is performed
manually by an operator at reference locations normally
in a grid with sufficient resolution that covers the targeted
area. To overcome this impractical time-consuming offline
phase, the proposed system uses the fact that any AP is
equipped by IEEE 802.11 WLAN transceiver hardware.
Thus, in addition to its default functionality as a wireless
connectivity provider, AP can also perform power pattern
recording. Moreover, if the AP firmware is modified to
carry the power pattern recording results on the beacon
frames over the free information element section [7], an AP
can be seen as a reference location that periodically
broadcasts the most recent power pattern recordings at
its location. Additionally, these online power pattern
recordings can be sent periodically over any proper
communication media such as the corporate TCP/IP
LAN to the centralized computer server.
In the proposed system prototype implementation, and
due to difficulty to modify AP firmware to broadcast the
power patterns recording results over the free information
elements of the beacon frame as described above (as this is
required to be adopted by an AP manufacturer), we put a
wireless monitor beside each AP to perform power pattern
recording and send periodically every 1 second over the
corporate TCP/IP LAN to the centralized computer server
the following information:
1. APs own MAC and APs own location.
2. Neighboring APs MACs.
3. Neighboring APs RSSIs.
Note that the wireless monitors are not a mandatory part of
the system and they are used here just for system
prototyping and proof of concept. In the commercial
implementation, the power pattern recording will be
carried over the beacon frames themselves to be received
and decoded by any WiFi-enabled device.
The incoming periodic online power patterns recording
are filtered using a low-pass filter and arranged with the
known locations of the sending APs in a data table as
shown in Table 1.
4.5 AP Power Profiling
Dynamic Radiomap construction is implemented by esti-
mating a power profile for each AP so that at any location,
RSS value can be estimated. Fig. 2 shows RSS values for an
AP given by Table 1 in a real environment. Although it
provides small number of RSS observations, it gives a
general idea about the current distribution of this AP power
profile. Estimating the power profile of each AP using
online observations of Table 1 solves three problems at
once. 1) Handling the dynamic changes. 2) Modeling the
general shape and distribution of obstacles and obstructions
in the environment. 3) It keeps the system aware about
recent APs locations.
4.5.1 Log-Distance RSS Model Limitations
Although the general pattern of AP power pofile is a
logarithmic decay [51], the complex indoor structure causes
odd RSS patterns that cannot be simply modeled by log-
distance formulas. This is obvious in Fig. 3, where curve
fitting fails to accurately estimate RSS values of Fig. 2 using
the path loss models [41], [17], [18], [20], [21] given by
jd 1. logd,d
o
. 1
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1777
TABLE 1
Online RSS Observation Table
where d is the distance from AP, and d
o
is initial distance of
measurements. Another limitation in log-distance models is
that it does not provide an accuracy measure with each
prediction and it does not consider orientation.
4.5.2 Bayesian Modeling Using Gaussian Process
Due to the limitations mentioned above, a better approach
is proposed to build an optimized power profile for each
AP is to augment log-distance formulas with a nonlinear
modeling technique to model the residuals that cannot be
modeled by log distance or any other parametric formulas.
In this problem, GPR [34], [35] is proposed as a nonpara-
metric probabilistic modeling approach, which is very
suitable to the noisy nature of RSS values. GPR has been
recently used to solve complex machine learning problems
[36], [37], [38]. In Section 4.5.2, we describe the GPR
concepts and how the AP power profiling problem can be
modeled using GPR.
Gaussian Processes (GPs). A GP is a vector of random
variables A, any finite number of which has a joint
Gaussian distribution [34] determined by a mean function
ir and covariance function /r. r
0
, where r 2 A. A noisy
process can be expressed as
Y )A . 2
where fY . Ag is a training data set. Assuming is an
additive zero-mean Gaussian noise with covariance c
2
i
, any
orbitrary function, Y can be modeled as a GP. An important
feature of GPs is marginalization [34], [35] that enables us to
calculate the posterior probability at unknown inputs r

if
some observations are available from of the noisy function
at some given inputs r.
Standard Gaussian Linear Regression Model. The linear
regression model for (2) can be written as
)A A
T
\. 3
where A is an input vector, \ is a weight vector, ) is the
estimated process output. In Bayesian analysis, best weights
are the weights that maximize the likelihood function that is
the probability density of the observations given the
parameters (weights) that is given by the following formula
assuming i independent observations:
jY jA. \

i
i1
jy
i
jr
i
. \. 4
Equation (4) can be written as
jY jA. \

i
i1
1

c
i
_ exp
y
i
r
T
i
\
2c
2
i
_ _

1
_
2

c
2
i
_
i,2
exp
1
2c
2
i
jY A
T
\j
2
_ _
.
5
which is a Gaussian distribution of mean A
T
\ and a
covariance c
2
i
1. The prior probability density function (PDF)
of weights is Gaussian with zero mean and covariance

j
: j\ `
_
0.

j
_
. 6
The posterior PDF of weights is given by Bayes rule
j\jY . A
jY jA. \j\
jY jA
. 7
Substituting from (5) and (6) in (7), noting that jY jA is a
normalization factor, the posterior PDF of weights is
Gaussian and given by
j\jA. Y / ` \
1
c
2
i

1
AY .
1
_ _
. 8
where c
2
i
AA
T

1
j
.
To compute a predictive posterior PDF for new inputs r

,
we average the output over all weights with their posterior
probabilities as follows:
jy

jr

. A. Y
_
jy

jr

. \j\jA. Y d\

_
r
T

\j\jA. yd\
`
1
c
2
i
r
T

1
AY . r
T

1
r

_ _
.
9
Nonlinear GPR. To overcome the limitation of linear
models, inputs AA could be projected into higher dimen-
sional feature space in which the problem becomes linearly
1778 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
Fig. 2. Power values at other APs locations used for power profile
estimation.
Fig. 3. Log-distance modeling of RSS online measurements of AP given
in Fig. 2.
separable. Actually this is what the hidden layer does in
multilayer perception neural networks [50]. Thus, the
function cr is used to map the 1-dimensional input
vectors to `-dimensional feature space. In this case, the
model is given by
)A cA
T
\. 10
and the predictive posterior PDF for unknown inputs r

given observations A and y is obtained by

jy

jr

. A. Y
`
_
cr

j
cA
_
1 c
2
i
1
_
1
Y . cr

j
cr

cr

j
cA1 c
2
i
1
1
cA
T

j
cr

_
.
11
where 1 A
T

j
A.
Gaussian Kernel Learning. In (11), the term cr

T

j
cA
can be seen as a covariance function or kernel [34], [35]. In
Bayesian analysis, instead of learning the weights like the
case in neural networks [50], Gaussian Regression learns
the kernel (Covariance of training data) [34]. This has the
advantage of having a nonparametric nonlinear regression
model that is robust to observations noises. The most
common kernel covariance function is the exponential
given by
Covy
i
. y
,
/r
i
. r
,
o
2
i
ci , 12
/r
i
. r
,
o
2
)
exp
1
2
r
i
r
,

T
`r
i
r
,

_ _
. 13
where r
i
. r
,
2 A and y
i
. y
,
2 Y and c is the Delta Dirac
function. Parameters o
2
i
, o
2
)
, and ` are called the hyper-
parameters and they can be learned and optimized by
maximizing the likelihood [34], [35] function given by
LogjY jA
1
2
Y
T
_
1 o
2
i
1
_
1
Y
log

1 o
2
i
1

i
2
log 2.
14
where 11 is the covariance matrix over all input vectors in
AA. However, we found that using only likelihood to learn
these parameters does not necessary get best positioning
accuracy. Thus, a genetic algorithm will be used to optimize
these hyperparameters as described in section Online
Verification and Calibration.
4.5.3 AP Power Profiling Using GPR
RSS Prediction with Zero-mean GPR. First, we will consider
RSS observations for each AP in Table 1 has a zero-mean
Gaussian prior PDF. The training data for each AP consist
of pairs {r
1
. y
1
. r
2
. y
2
. . . r
`
. y
`
}, where r is a 2D
location, and y is an RSS value of the AP at location r.
Initially, a covariance ` by ` matrix 1 is calculated using
(12) over the data set of ` observations (pairs of 2D
Locations and RSS values) available in Table 1. Having the
covariance matrix 1 for all gathered data set (A,Y ), signal
power PDF of this AP in unknown inputs r

can be
estimated according to Bayesian rule (marginalization
feature [34]) as follows:
j
r
/
_
r

. A
__
1 o
2
i
1
_
1
Y . 15
o
2
r
/
_
r

. r

_
/
_
r

. A
_
T
_
1 o
2
i
1
_
1
/r

. A. 16
where j
r
is the predicted mean RSS (in dBm) at this
location, o
r
is the STDV (in dBm), /r

. A is a vector of
` elements each element is the result of applying (13) on
r

and the corresponding element in A. The estimated

power profile and corresponding error STDV for the AP of
Fig. 2 is shown in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. It is important
to note that GPR performs three important functions as
follows: 1) Predicts power PDF over all locations.
2) Smoothes out the power values noise. 3) Provides a
STDV which each predicted power value. It is important to
note also that Fig. 5 shows that the STDV decreases in and
around the locations where there are APs (there are power
patterns observations) and decreases gradually as the
location goes away from the locations in which we have
APs (power patterns observations). This characteristic is
very important to provide a reliable accuracy measure with
location estimations.
RSS Prediction with Log-Distance mean GPR. It is obvious
from Fig. 4 that the RSS values at locations in which we do
not have training data (far away from any AP), the
estimated RSS value tends to zero. This is because the
zero-mean assumption in GPR (ir 0). Thus, to enhance
RSS estimation, we need a proper mean. A good idea is to
use the Log-Distance model of (1) as general mean and then
use GPR to model the residual RSS errors that cannot
be modeled by the Log-Distance model. In this case, the
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1779
Fig. 4. Power profile estimation using GPR with zero-mean.
Fig. 5. STDV of power profile estimation.
training data to GPR are not the observed RSS value but the
difference between observed RSS value and the estimated
RSS value by the Log-Distance model. The new RSS
Estimated power profile for the AP of Fig. 2 using GPR
with Log-Distance mean is shown in Fig. 6. Clearly, the
tendency to zero is removed.
In the GPR with Log-Distance mean case, the predicted
residual RSS for unknown location r

will be given by
j
r
ir

/r

. A
_
1 o
2
i
1
_
1
Y iA. 17
ir

1. log
__
_
r

i
1
_
_
,d
o
_
. 18
where r

i
1
k k is the distance from the AP location i
1
and the input location r

. Note that the variance formula

will be the same as in (16). Also note that model
parameterrs of (18) will be estimated using curve fitting
based on the data points available in Table 1. It can be seen
clearly that the tendency to zero in points away from APs is
no longer there. In the experimental results and discussions
section, we will compare the performance in both cases
(zero-mean GPR and Log-Distance mean GPR).
4.6 Online Radio Map Construction
The location computer server will construct the radio map
by merging all estimated APs power profiles so that for
each location r, there is a corresponding vector of power
probability distribution from all AP in the targeted area
visible from this location. The constructed radio map covers
the whole targeted area will be saved in a larger database
table. Additionally, with each location in the fine radio map,
the average of STDVs of the individual AP power PDFs is
stored as the STDV associated with this location.
4.6.1 Online Verification and Calibration
The verification process will be implemented as follows:
1. In radiomap construction process, instead of using
the whole data in Table 1, a portion such as
80 percent will be used and the remaining 20 percent
will be used to verify the accuracy of the constructed
radio map.
2. The testing RSS values are used to estimate a
location using constructed radiomap using a simple
K-NN Algorithm.
3. These locations are compared with the reference
locations of these testing data and the location mean
square error (1oc 1`o1) will be recorded.
4. If 1oc 1`o1 is still larger than a threshold, the
hyperparameters o
2
i
, o
2
)
, and ` used in each AP
profile estimation will be changed according to
Genetic Algorithms operators [43], [46] using the
following fitness function to be maximized:
1o
i
. o
)
. `
n1
1oc 1`o1
n21oqjY jA. 19
Note that in the fitness function in (19), we weight the
likelihood over the training data and the positioning
accuracy over the testing data using weights w1 and w2
tuned empirically. In genetic iteration, AP power profiling
and radiomap construction will be repeated and new
radiomap will be used again with the testing data set to
verify its accuracy. This process continues until an
acceptable mean square error is obtained. This process is
illustrated in Fig. 7.
1780 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
Fig. 6. Power profile estimation using Gaussian Regression with Log-
Distance Mean.
Fig. 7. Online calibration of dynamic radio map.
4.6.2 AP Selection Using FOS Feature Reduction
In fingerprinting, a high number of APs may deteriorate
accuracy by incorporating insignificant APs power values
that does not contribute in discriminating between loca-
tions [39]. Additionally, it is preferred to remove any
redundancy from the radiomap to avoid unnecessary
processing. In [39], a feature reduction algorithm based
on transformation matrix was proposed. However, one
drawback of this technique is that the original feature space
(the AP MAC) is lost. Additionally, it is computationally
expensive. In Atia et al. [45], the authors introduced a fast
feature reduction approach using Fast Orthogonal Search
(FOS) to simultaneously fit multiple observations [44] for
this purpose. It is a faster alternative to Principal
Component Analysis [22] that selects principal features in
the original feature space itself without performing Eigen
values/vectors calculation or transformation. In this step,
this fast features reduction approach is applied to select the
most informative AP in the constructed fine radio map.
4.7 Positioning Procedure
The positioning scenario will be performed using the
following steps:
4.7.1 Positioning Request
The WiFi-enabled device will perform a wireless scan
to collect a power fingerprint. A power fingerprint is
defined as MAC/Power value pairs from all surrounding
visible AP. The WiFi-enabled device sends this power
fingerprint to the location server using an XML web request
(web-service request [42]).
4.7.2 Position Estimation
The location server will compare the current sent power
fingerprint with the saved power patterns in the radio map
using a weighted-KNN algorithm [17], [18] to provide a
location. In a weighted-KNN algorithm, a weighted average
is performed by giving the highest weight to the most
nearest radio map point. Thus, given current WiFi
fingerprint 1oo1
c
, the current position 1
c
is estimated by
1
c
n
1
1
1
n
2
1
2
n
/
1
/
20
n
i

exp1oo1
c
1oo1
i

/
1
exp1oo1
c
1oo1
,

. 21
where 1oo1
i
is the WiFi power pattern recorded with
point 1
i
in the radiomap.
4.7.3 Error STDV Calculation
The location error STDV is calculated by converting the
power STDV estimated by GPR into meters. As shown in
Fig. 3, a Log-Distance pathloss model is fitted on each AP
RSS values in Table 1. To calculate distance change c
d
corresponding to power change c
j
, from (1) we have
c
j
c
d

0
_
1. log
_
d
d
o
__
0d

1
d ln10
.
22
Then, we have
c
d
c
j
d ln10
1
. 23
The location error STDV is calculated by averaging the
STDVs of the K nearest neighbors selected in the radiomap
points used in location estimation in (20).
4.7.4 Positioning Response
The location server sends the computed location and error
STDV to the WiFi-enabled user device using an XML web
request (web-service request [42]).
5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
5.1 Experimental Setup and FOS-Selection of APs
Physical experiments were performed in two indoor areas;
the first one is inside the Queens university residence. It is
approximately 20 m by 15 m area (see Fig. 8). The second
environment is 25 m by 40 m in sixth floor in Queens
University in Computer Engineering Department, Canada
(see Fig. 9). Both environments are equipped by IEEE
802.11 WLAN. Wireless monitors were distributed beside
each AP. The environments are connected by the uni-
versity TCP/IP network. Part of the network is IEEE 802.11
WLAN and part is wired, which is the university Ethernet
TCP/IP LAN.
A computer server running a web service was setup to
process XML web requests from wireless monitors and
users WLAN-enabled devices. The wireless monitors send
power pattern recordings every 1 second to the computer
server through XML web requests. The computer server
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1781
Fig. 8. Testing area 1.
Fig. 9. Testing area 2.
applies low-pass filtering to RSS measurements. This
computer server runs the dynamic online-calibrated radio
map construction process in the background and run also
the FOS-selection of APs. The FOS-selected APs are shown
in red circles in Figs. 8 and 9. All RSS estimation and
positioning will use those four APs.
In parallel, another web service is running to receive
users positioning requests through XML web requests.
The location estimation web service uses the most recent
online-calibrated radiomap to process users requests and
responds by location estimation and STDV (estimation
accuracy measure).
5.2 Obstacles Distribution Effect on RSS
To see how GPR broadly models the general shape of the
area, a map of AP3 in area 2 overlaid with area 2 map is
shown in Fig. 10. An odd power decrease-then-increase is
seen in west south corner of the area. The explanation for
this is that there is an electricity room beside this area as
shown in Fig. 10. Additionally, estimated RSS values in the
west north room generally show the effect of walls. These
odd RSS patterns cannot be modeled by traditional pass
loss models.
5.3 RSS Estimation Accuracy
To assess the RSS estimation accuracy, a total of 58 and 67
reference locations were selected in the two testing areas,
respectively, (see small dark circles in Figs. 8 and 9) at
which a WLAN-enabled laptop was used to record RSSI
values from visible APs. Then, the observed RSS at these
locations are compared to the GPR estimated RSS. The
overall results are summarized in Tables 2 and 3 showing
GPR without and with Log-Distance model mean. The
result s of all eight AP from area 1 and area 2 are shown in
Fig. 11 in GPR with Zero-mean GPR and Log-Distance
mean case including the STDVs. It can be seen from
numbers in Tables 2 and 3 the RSS error is reduced by 40-
50 percent if Log-Distance GPR is used. It is noted also
that accuracy decreases at right borders area of testing
Area 2 because features reduction did not select any APs
on right borders.
5.4 Relationship between RSS Error and STDV
The bottom graphs in Fig. 11 show that there is a suitable
degree of correlation between RSS errors and the estimated
accuracy measure (RSS STDV). In regions with large RSS
errors, SDTV is higher and vice versa. This reflects the
relevancy of STDV as an accuracy measure.
5.5 Location Estimation Accuracy
5.5.1 Static Test
In this test, the observed RSS values at the 58 and 67
reference locations were sent to the location computer server
that used the recently constructed radio map to provide a
location and STDV for each reference location. Position error
(RMSE) in testing area 1 and area 2 are shown in Table 4,
which shows how Log-Distance GPR performs much better
in positioning than zero-mean GPR. Fig. 12 shows the results
if the radio map is constructed using Log-Distance mean
GPR. RMSE of 2.0367 m in area 1 and 3.017 m in area 2 were
obtained. These results are very similar or even slightly
better than the results reported in [28] with the advantage of
not depending on any preknowledge of the building
(i.e., floor maps) and without ray-trace simulation software.
Also the results are comparable to those reported in [52] in
which similar Gaussian Regression approach is used but
with offline radio survey phase. Our approach has the
advantage of not depending on offline training data that
enable it to approach to dynamically model the changes in
the environment using less AP.
Relationship between Positioning Error and Estimated Stan-
dard Deviation. Fig. 12 shows the position STDV values with
each testing point. In general, there is a suitable degree of
positive correlation between the estimated STDV and the
true accuracy. This confirms that, for positioning as well, in
general, the error STDV is consistent with the error value,
which, again, indicates the reliability of the STDV calculated
1782 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
Fig. 10. AP RSS estimated distribution from the FOS-APs.
TABLE 2
RSS Errors (dBm) in Testing Area 1
TABLE 3
RSS Errors (dBm) in Testing Area 2
by GPR prediction as an accurate integrity monitoring. To
authors knowledge, none of the similar systems reported in
the literature provide such integrity monitoring values.
More on the Accuracy Measure. If we selected portions of
the resulting dynamic radiomap based on the estimated
error STDVs calculated by GPR and then calculated the
accuracy of positioning at these points, this will give us
more insight about the accuracy of the estimated STDV.
Fig. 13 shows the root mean square error versus the STDV
in meters in area 1 and area 2. A data point in this plotting
represents the RMSE of the portion of reference data points,
where STDV is less than or equal to the specified value. The
figure shows a pretty good consistency between the true
accuracy and the estimated accuracy measure (STDV). In
addition, the results show a good correlation between
results of testing area 1 and testing area 2.
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1783
Fig. 11. RSS estimation accuracy results in both testing areas.
5.5.2 Walking Test
Due to the lack of a reliable accurate reference navigation
system indoors, we followed predefined trajectories with
known Waypoints. These predefined trajectories are shown
in Figs. 8 and 9 for testing area 1 and area 2, respectively.
During this test, a WLAN-enabled laptop was used to
record users power fingerprint and send this information
over XML web requests to the location computer server.
The laptop is connected wirelessly to the university IEEE
802.11 WLAN and can access the location computer server.
The laptop has software that collects current user power
fingerprint and issues an XML web request and sends it to
the location computer server, which responds by location
and error STDV. At the known waypoints, we stopped and
recorded the reference location for positioning RMSE
calculation purposes.
Fig. 14 and Table 5 show the positioning accuracy of the
walking test in area 1 and area 2. The RMSE in area 1 is
2.26 m and 3.196 m in area 2. These results compared to
systems in [28] and [52] considered very good without
offline surveys or ray tracing or floor maps software. Fig. 14
shows again the positive correlation between the positioning
error and the estimated accuracy measure (STDV), which is
considered an added value and significant contribution.
To compare the performance with the traditional offline
radiomap, the positioning of the two trajectories in testing
area 1 and area 2 were performed using the 58 and 67
offline radiomap points. The RMSE are shown in Table 5,
which shows comparable performance with the advantage
of removing the time-consuming offline surveying work.
5.5.3 Maximum Expected Positioning Error
If the area contains single AP, the radio map will be the AP
power profile itself, which will be a bell centered at the AP
location (Fig. 15). Given any positioning request contains
this AP RSS value, matched locations in the radio map will
be a perfect circle centered at AP location and the system
1784 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
TABLE 4
Positioning ErrorStatic TestArea 1 and Area 2
Fig. 12. Static test positioning error at reference locations at testing area1 and area 2.
will always generate the AP location (average of circile
border is the circle center) as a solution. The maximum
position error would be the radius of the coverage circle of
the AP. So, the stronger the AP signals is the larger will be
the positioning uncertainty.
6 CONCLUSION
In this paper, a WLAN-based positioning system suitable
for indoor and GNSS-denied area was introduced. The basic
advantage of the proposed system is that it uses few online
power patterns measured by the WLAN AP themselves to
construct dynamically a fine radio map that accurately
models the signal power distribution over environment
without the need for the traditional time-consuming offline
site survey or extra network hardware. Although many APs
measurements were used to dynamically estimate the fine
radio map, only four AP were selected by features
reduction step to achieve best positioning accuracy in less
time. Of course in larger areas such as airports, more AP
will be needed accordingly. Thus, in addition to the
continuous dynamic adaptation to environments changes
by the verification and correction process, the system uses
few wireless AP to do positioning. Another important
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1785
Fig. 14. Walking test results in area 1 and area 2 using Log-Distance
GPR RSS radio map estimation.
TABLE 5
Positioinig ErrorWalking Test Area 1 and Area 2
Fig. 13. Relationship between the estimated accuracy measure (STDV)
and actual error in both testing areas.
Fig. 15. Power profile if only single AP exists.
advantage of the proposed system is the ability to provide
accurate error STDVs that tells the user how confident the
system is about the estimated positioning results. This
makes the system easy to integrate with other filtering-
based integrated navigation systems that depend on error
STDVs to weight the observation and determine its
contribution in the final integrated output. Two physical
experiments in two different areas were conducted, and the
results were consistent. In both testing areas, 2-3m accuracy
was achieved with few APs.
REFERENCES
[1] M. Grewal, S.L.R. Weill, and A.P. Andrews, Global Positioning
Systems, Inertial Navigation, and Integration. John Wiley & Sons,
2007.
[2] E.D. Kaplan and J.H. Christopher, Understanding GPS: Principles
and Applications, second ed. Artech House, 2006.
[3] J.A. Farrell, Aided Navigation, GPS with High Rate Sensors. McGraw
Hill, 2008.
[4] P. Huang and Y. Pi, Urban Environment Solutions to GPS Signal
Near-Far Effect, IEEE Aerospace And Electronic Systems Magazine,
vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 18-27, June 2011.
[5] J.M. Nathan, Wi-Fi for the Enterprise: Maximizing 802.11 for Business.
McGraw-Hill, 2003.
[6] IEEE Standard for Information Technology, Telecomm. and Information
Exchange between Systems, Local and Metropolitan Area Networks,
Specific Requirements Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control
(MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, IEEE, 2009.
[7] IEEE Standard for Information Technology, Telecomm. and Information
Exchange between Systems, Local and Metropolitan Area Networks,
Specific Requirements Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control
(MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, Amendment 8: IEEE
802.11 Wireless, Network Management, IEEE, 2009.
[8] R. Farivar, D. Wiczer, A. Gutierrez, and R.H. Campbell, A
Statistical Study on the Impact of Wireless Signals Behavior on
Location Estimation Accuracy in 802.11 Fingerprinting Systems,
Proc. IEEE Intl Symp. Parallel and Distributed Processing, pp. 1-8,
July 2009.
[9] P. Bahl and V. Padmanabhan, RADAR: An In-Building RF-Based
User Location and Tracking System, Proc. IEEE INFOCOM,
pp. 775-784, 2000.
[10] H. Lim, L. Kung, J.C. Hou, and H. Luo, Zero-Configuration
Indoor Localization over IEEE 802.11 Wireless Infrastructure,
Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, Apr. 2006.
[11] G. Sun, J. Chen, W. Guo, and K. Liu, Signal Processing
Techniques in Network-Aided Positioning: A Survey of State-of-
the-Art Positioning Designs, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine,
vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 12-23, July 2005.
[12] K. Axel, Location-Based Services: Fundamentals and Operation. John
Wiely & Sons, 2005.
[13] J. Hightower and G. Borriello, Location Systems for Ubiquitous
Computing, IEEE Computer Magazine, vol. 34, no. 8, pp. 57-66,
Aug. 2001.
[14] S. Tekinay, Wireless Geolocation Systems and Services, IEEE
Comm. Magazine, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 28-28, Apr. 1998.
[15] Y. Chen and H. Kobayashi, Signal Strength Based Indoor
Geolocation, Proc. IEEE Intl Conf. Comm., vol. 1, pp. 436-439, 2002.
[16] P. Bergamo and G. Mazzini, Localization in Sensor Networks
with Fading and Mobility, Pervasive Computing and Comm., vol. 2,
pp. 750-754, 2002.
[17] H. Liu, H. Darabi, P. Banerjee, and L. Jing, Survey of Wireless
Indoor Positioning Techniques and Systems, IEEE Trans. Systems
Man, and Cybernetics, Part C, Applications and Rev., vol. 37, no. 6,
pp. 1067-1080, Nov. 2007.
[18] A. Roxin, J. Gaber, M. Wack, and A. Nait-Sidi-Moh, Survey of
Wireless Geolocation Techniques, Proc. IEEE Globecom Workshops,
pp. 1-9, 2007.
[19] N.R. Yousef, A. Sayed, and L. Jalloul, Robust Wireless Location
over Fading Channels, IEEE Trans. Vehicular Technology, vol. 52,
no. 1, pp. 117-126, Jan. 2003.
[20] V.V. Saeed, Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction.
John Wiely & Sons, 2006.
[21] R.S. Simon and A.-Z. Alejandro, Antennas and Propagation for
Wireless Communication Systems. John Wiely & Sons, 2007.
[22] Y. Xu, M. Zhou, and L. Ma, WiFi Idoor Location Determina-
tion via ANFIS with PCA Methods, Proc. IEEE Intl Conf.
Network Infrastructure and Digital Content (IC-NIDC), pp. 647-651,
2009.
[23] S. Fang, T. Lin, and K. Lee, A Novel Algorithm for Multipath
Fingerprinting in Indoor WLAN Environments, IEEE Trans.
Wireless Comm., vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 3579-3588, Sept. 2008.
[24] I. Guvenc, C. Abdallah, R. Jordan, and O. Dedeoglu, Enhance-
ments to RSS Based Indoor Tracking Systems Using Kalman
Filters, Proc. Intl Signal Processing Conf. and Global Signal
Processing Expo, 2003.
[25] A. Dore, A.F. Cattoni, and C.S. Regazzoni, A Particle Filter Based
Fusion Framework for Video-Radio Tracking in Smart Spaces,
Proc. IEEE Conf. Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance
(AVSS), pp. 99-104, 2007.
[26] A. Kushki, K. Plataniotis, and A.N. Venetsanopoulos, Location
Tracking in Wireless Local Area Networks with Adaptive Radio
Maps, Proc. IEEE Intl Conf. Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
(ICASSP), vol. 5, pp. 741-744, 2006.
[27] F. Duvallet and A.D. Tews, WiFi Position Estimation in
Industrial Environments Using Gaussian Processes, Proc. IEEE/
RSJ Intl Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 2216-2221, Sept.
2008.
[28] Y. Ji, S. Biaz, S. Pandey, and P. Agrawal, ARIADNE: A Dynamic
Indoor Signal Map Construction and Localization System, Proc.
IEEE MobiSys Conf., vol. 2, pp. 151-164, June 2006.
[29] M. Ocan, L. Bergasa, L., M. Sotelo, R. Flores, E. Lopez, and R.
Barea, Training Method Improvements of a WiFi Navigation
System Based on POMDP, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl Conf. Intelligent
Robots and Systems, Oct. 2006.
[30] H. Pesonen, A Framework for Bayesian Receiver Autonomous
Integrity Monitoring in Urban Navigation, Navigation, vol. 58,
no. 3, pp. 229-240, 2011.
[31] U. Black, Mobile and Wireless Networks. Prentice Hall Series, 1996.
[32] D.K. Wong, Wireless Internet Telecommunications, Mobile Commu-
nication Series. Artech House, 2005.
[33] C. Smith and J. Meyer, 3G Wireless with WiMAX and WiFi.
McGraw-Hill, 2005.
[34] C.E Rasmussen and K.L. Williams, Gaussian Processes for Machine
Learning. MIT Press, 2006.
[35] M.M. Atia, N. Aboelmagd, and M.J Korenberg, Gaussian Process
Regression Approach for Bridging GPS Outages in Integrated
Navigation Systems, Electronic Letters, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 52-53,
Jan. 2011.
[36] N. Duy and J. Peters, Local Gaussian Process Regression for Real-
Time Model-Based Robot Control, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl Conf.
Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 380-385, 2008.
[37] H. Asheri, H.R. Rabiee, N. Pourdamghani, and M.H Rohban, A
Gaussian Process Regression Framework for Spatial Error Con-
cealment with Adaptive Kernels, Proc. 20th Intl Conf. Pattern
Recognition (ICPR), pp. 4541-4544, 2010.
[38] H. He and S. Wan-Chi, Single Image Super-Resolution Using
Gaussian Process Regression, Proc. IEEE Conf. Computer Vision
and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp. 449-456, 2011.
[39] S.H. Fang, T.N. Lin, and P. Lin, Location Fingerprinting in a
Decorrelated Space, IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Eng., vol. 20,
no. 5, pp. 685-691, May 2008.
[40] J. Wolberg, Data Analysis Using the Method of Least Squares:
Extracting the Most Information from Experiments. Springer, 2006.
[41] W. Chin-Liang, C. Yih-Shyh, and Y. Sheng-Cheng, A Location
Algorithm Based on Radio Propagation Modeling for Indoor
Wireless Local Area Networks, Proc. IEEE 61st Conf. Vehicular
Technology (VTC 05-Spring), 2005.
[42] M.C. Daconta, L.J. Obrst, and K.T. Smith, The Semantic Web: A
Guide to the Future of XML, Web Services, and Knowledge Manage-
ment, first ed. Wiley, 2003.
[43] M.M. Atia, Multistage Genetic Algorithm for Robotic Arms
Obstacles Avoidance Motion Planning, Proc. Intl Conf. Genetic
and Evolutionary Methods (GEM 09), July 2009.
[44] M.J. Korenberg and K.M. Adeney, Iterative Fast Orthogonal
Search for Modeling by a Sum of Exponentials or Sinusoids, Ann.
Biomedical Eng., vol. 26, pp. 315-327, 1998.
[45] M.M Atia, M.J. Korenberg, and N. Aboelmagd, Fast Features
Reduction of Radio Maps for Real-Time Fingerprint-Based
Wireless Positioning Systems, Electronic Letters, vol. 47, no. 20,
pp. 1151-1153, Sept. 2011.
1786 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
[46] D.E. Goldberg, Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization &
Machine Learning. Addison Wesley, 1989.
[47] BBC London, Can the Whole of London Go Wi-Fi? http://
news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/newsid_
8691000/8691879.stm, May 2010.
[48] S.H. Cooper and P.J. Teller, TCP/IP Throughput over an
Outdoor Multi-Hop Wireless LAN, Proc. IEEE Radio and Wireless
Conf., pp. 311-314, 2004.
[49] A. Kushki, K.N. Plataniotis, and A.N. Venetsanopoulos, Intelli-
gent Dynamic Radio Tracking in Indoor Wireless Local Area
Networks, IEEE Trans. Mobile Computing, vol, 9, no. 3, pp. 405-
419, Mar. 2010.
[50] I. Aizenberg, Complex-Valued Neural Networks with Multi-Valued
Neurons, Springer Series: Studies in Computational Intelligence,
vol. 353, first ed. Springer 2011.
[51] A. Bose and C.H. Foh, A Practical Path Loss Model for Indoor
WiFi Positioning Enhancement, Proc. Intl Conf. Information,
Comm. Signal Processing, pp. 1-5, 2007.
[52] B. Ferris, D. Hahnel, and D. Fox, Gaussian Processes for Signal
Strength-Based Location Estimation, Proc. Robotics Science and
Systems, 2006.
Mohamed M. Atia received the BSc and MSc
degrees in computer engineering from Ain
Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2000 and
2006, respectively, and is currently working
toward the PhD degree in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queens
University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He was
also with the software industry for several years.
He is a member of the NavIns Research Group
at the Royal Military College of Canada. His
research interests include artificial intelligence, estimation, and wireless
and inertial navigation systems. He became a student member of the
IEEE in 2011 and is currently a member of the IEEE.
Aboelmagd Noureldin received the BSc de-
gree in electrical engineering and the MSc
degree in engineering physics from Cairo Uni-
versity, Giza, Egypt, in 1993 and 1997, respec-
tively, and the PhD degree in electrical and
computer engineering from the University of
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 2002. He is a
cross-appointment associate professor in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada, and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Royal Military College (RMC) of Canada. He is also the founder of the
NavInst Research Group, RMC. His research interests include artificial
intelligence, digital signal processing, wavelet multiresolution analysis,
and adaptive filtering, with applications in mobile multisensor integration
for navigation and positioning technologies. He is the chair of the
Alternative Integration Methods Research Group, International Associa-
tion of Geodesy. He is a senior member of the IEEE.
Michael J. Korenberg received the MSc degree
in mathematics and the PhD degree in electrical
engineering from McGill University, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada, in 1968 and 1972, respec-
tively. He is currently a professor in the Depart-
ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
He has published extensively in the areas of
nonlinear system identification and time-series
analysis. He is a senior member of the IEEE.
> For more information on this or any other computing topic,
please visit our Digital Library at www.computer.org/publications/dlib.
ATIA ET AL.: DYNAMIC ONLINE-CALIBRATED RADIO MAPS FOR INDOOR POSITIONING IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 1787