IJIRST –International Journal for Innovative Research in Science & Technology| Volume 4 | Issue 1 | June 2017

ISSN (online): 2349-6010

Comparative Analysis of Indoor Positioning

System using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
A. M. Chandrashekhar
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering(SJCE), JSS
S&T University Campus, Mysore, Karnataka, India
Thejaswini S
M. Tech. Student
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering(SJCE), JSS
S&T University Campus, Mysore, Karnataka, India

Abstract
An indoor positioning system (IPS) is defined as the network of devices which is widely used to wirelessly locate objects under
the same roof using radio waves, acoustic signals, magnetic fields and other sensory information grasped by mobile devices.
Reliable indoor positioning is a base for emerging indoor location based services. Bluetooth - Indoor Positioning System is said to
be the intersection of Indoor Positioning Systems and Bluetooth Technology. Similarly, Wi-Fi Indoor Positioning System is the
intersection of Indoor Positioning Systems and Wi-Fi Technology. This paper presents a comparative analysis of Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth using IPS.
Keywords: Indoor Positioning System, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

I. INTRODUCTION

An indoor positioning system (IPS) is dependent on the nearby anchors i.e. nodes with a known position, they either provide
environment context or actively locate tags for devices to sense. The localized nature of an IPS results in design fragmentation
which has systems that makes use of various radios, optical or even acoustic technologies[2][5].
Since GPS does not work on indoors, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are good alternatives for indoor positioning and indoor navigation.
Indoor navigation uses Wi-Fi and senses when it has to replace GPS in buildings. This paper uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and aims
at providing the comparative analysis of Indoor positioning system [5].
 Bluetooth - A wireless technology standard to exchange the data overshot distances (via ISM band from 2400-2480 MHZ in
short-wavelength radio transmissions) from mobile and fixed devices. It creates personal area networks for high level security.
 Wi-Fi - Any wireless local network product which is based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. The merit of Wi-Fi over Bluetooth
is that it essentially needs no infrastructure effort to track applications if the indoor area is covered through Wi-Fi signal.
The merits of using a wireless solution in industrial applications are as follows:
1) Higher mobility and greater possibility to move devices and eventually connect to tablets or smart phones freely without
constraining to cables,
2) Elimination of costly transmission media and its maintenance like the swivels, flexible cables and by-passing long distances
areas where cables could not be practically fit
3) For quick and easy installation process,
4) For higher flexibility if a need arises to modify an existing installation
5) To increase the personnel safety by maintaining distance between devices during maintenance and configuration
6) To simplify integration of devices inside the network.

II. LITERATURE SURVEY

Bluetooth is said to provide a reliable solution to the interior location [3]. Another working group is called for local positioning
which was set up to develop a Bluetooth description. The type and format of information not only allows the Bluetooth device to
exchange the location information, but also the co-ordinates of the algorithm [5]. Anyhow, it takes enough time before the group
with personal data, since the author is presently engaged in a project to grasp the performance of local Bluetooth positioning.
Many research & tests for the usage of Wi-Fi communication for indoor navigation has been done in the long past through
optimized and advanced versions of algorithms [7]. Through dense network of access points and by RSSI measurements over the
Wi-Fi signals one can determine the distance of user’s device using individual access points, and finally applying the trilateration
technique for precise position determination. This gives a clear picture in estimating the mobile device’s location in indoor setting.
There is a growing organization for research work mainly concerned with indoor positioning, primarily driven by the desire to
personalize or augment the users experience in a contextual range. Currently, one of the promising works has mentioned the fact
that despite the excessive use of smart phones and technology infrastructures which has the potential to provide precise positioning
is it reliable with respect to positioning? It’s still an on-going research question.

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 Comparative Analysis of Indoor Positioning System using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
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III. RELATED WORK

Among the different existing proposals for indoor positioning, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are two widely used wireless technologies.
We briefly review Wi-Fi based and Bluetooth based indoor positioning.
Wi-Fi Based Indoor Positioning
Wi-Fi refers to a wireless technology that stands for Wireless Fidelity which allows devices to communicate over a wireless signal.
IEEE standard 802.11 also known as Wi-Fi; uses the centralized router devices for sharing Wi-Fi signal with the inclusion of other
additional standards such as 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n.Wi-Fi supports additional features: Power management
(802.11h) and Security mechanisms (802.11) include WPA/WPA2/WEP. For the transfer of data with high speed over short
distances, waves are been used by the Wi-Fi networking technology.
Like Ethernet and token ring siblings (fig 1), Wi-Fi is designed for use in limited geographical areas such as home, office
buildings, campuses, by allowing local area networks (LANs) to process without wiring and cables.

Fig. 1: Wi-Fi using hotspot

For many modern devices such as tablets, computers, laptops and mobiles the wireless broadband internet access is provided by
Wi-Fi with authentication. With the functionalities of Wi-Fi, high data transfer rate can be accessed by broad band internet
connection (fig 2). The major attractive feature of Wi-Fi is that it provides broadband connection for wireless communication
within a specific geographic space.

Fig. 2: Wi-Fi connection

Bluetooth Based Indoor Positioning

Bluetooth technology is beneficial when information needs to be transferred between many devices that are nearby and when the
speed is not the issue, such as printers, modems, smart phones and telephones. It is most suitable for the applications which
specifically uses lower-bandwidth for transfer of data within précised geographical boundary, such as transferring audio
information with telephones i.e., with a Bluetooth headset or with hand-held systems for (transferring files) for byte-data or mice
and keyboard. In order to enable positioning the deployment of Bluetooth hotspots in indoor space was practiced.

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 Comparative Analysis of Indoor Positioning System using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
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Since Bluetooth hotspots relatively covers limited space, the proximity analysis is been employed by the Bluetooth based indoor
positioning systems for position estimation. Specifically, the locations deployed by Bluetooth hotspots are tracked as reference
positions. These reference positions are returned as the user’s position estimates when a Bluetooth-enabled device of the user enters
a specific hotspot’s range, the hotspot of the device identified (or vice versa).
It is even possible to utilize the range of detection of a Bluetooth hotspot to nearly approximate a user’s present position. In this
case, (fig 3)when the multiple Bluetooth hotspots are detected paralelly at a location, intersection of all the hotspot detection ranges
or band can be used to approximate the user’s location. However, these techniques are most complex in nature as they might return
erratic regions as location estimates; this even involves expensive geometrical calculations.
For application in industry, wireless technology has to be compatible when the environment is noisy. Bluetooth utilizes the
features of Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) and Forward Error Correction (FEC) to operate. It gives a universal short range
wireless capability. It operates within the 2.4 GHz frequency band and devices within 10m from each other can share data upto
720Kbps of its capacity. Before making the connection between the devices, this technology or system which is an authenticated
one sends the acknowledgement from receiver to transmitter.

Fig. 3: Bluetooth connection

IV. BLUETOOTH V/S WI-FI

Formulation
The invention of Bluetooth technology has been credited to Ericsson in the year 1994 which then launched it as an alternative to
wireless communication to RS232.
Though Wi-Fi had researches since mid 80s, it was officially launched in 1997. A separate committee for the development of
Wi-Fi was then set in the year 1990 head by, Mr. Victor Hayes – The Father of Wi-Fi.
Standards of IEEE
Bluetooth which was initially defined under IEEE 802.15.1 standard is now taken care under a special interest group (SIG).
Wi-Fi, which was defined under 802.11.x series of protocols and is presently maintained under the same protocol. Various
companies have founded a Wi-Fi alliance, which tests and authorizes gadgets to be compatible with Wi-Fi.
Frequency
Wi-Fi based networks work at 2.4, 3.6 and 5GHz. Whereas Bluetooth works at 2.4GHz frequency.
Range
Bluetooth based wireless connection has a maximum range of 30m whereas for Wi-Fi it can extend almost upto 100m. In Wi-Fi,
the range is dependent on the versions of its Wi-Fi protocol applied and addition of antennas in communication system. While no
such range concerns or extra antennae are so much known in case of Bluetooth.
Connection of Devices
In Bluetooth, upto 8 devices can be connected to one another. Whilst in the case of Wi-Fi, the number of maximum connections
depends on Wi-Fi router. The routers can simultaneously accommodate one to several communicating devices.

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 Comparative Analysis of Indoor Positioning System using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
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Security
In Bluetooth, the earlier versions were encryption and till date Bluetooth security is limited to key matching. Whilst in Wi-Fi, the
standards of security have been inclusively provided with new versions. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Wireless Equivalent
Privacy (WEP) are the most used security accesses in Wi-Fi.
Table - 1
Wi-Fi vs Bluetooth
Parameter Wi-Fi Bluetooth
Cost High Low
Authority of specifications IEEE , WACA Bluetooth SIG
Security More secure Less secure
Development year 1991 1994
Latency 150 ms 200 ms
Bit-rate 600 ms 2.1 ms
Typical link length 100 m 10 m
Power consumption High Low
Latency 150 ms 200 ms
Wired technology analogy Ethernet USB
Bluetooth
Hardware requirement Wireless access points, Wireless adaptors on all devices of the networks
Adaptor on all the devices
Wi-Fi security strategies are:
 Block your Service Set Identifier (SSID) from being broadcast.
 SSID that allows identifying the service network: it is a 32 bytes character string of a variable size.
 SSID is used in order to guarantee the authentication and the identification between an AP and a client.
 Wireless beacon so PCs can easily find the access point. Change the default network name in the access point.
 Change the default access point password.
Center the access point in the middle of the building, house or any other place.
Power Consumption
Can work at longer distances and capable of being loaded with high quality security protocols? This makes Wi-Fi a power
consuming protocol when compared to Bluetooth.

V. CONCLUSION

To summarize, it can be said that amongst the two Indoor Positioning System, Wi-Fi outmaneuvers the other i.e. the Bluetooth
system through its capability and compatibility in different work environment. Overall, Wi-Fi uses better protocols and algorithms
to deliver better performance i.e. from its location determination of a mobile user to the Quality of output. And also the security
provided by Wi-Fi is more compared to Bluetooth, for this Wi-Fi uses WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and WEP security protocols.
Follow-up work will concentrate on the further analysis and system improvement of the models and on the integration with
other protocols to deliver better quality signals to smart phones.

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