Study of scalability of passive and active solutions for time-based ranging in IEEE 802.11 networks

Abstract

Wireless positioning systems have become very popular in recent years. Outdoor positioning has been addressed successfully, but location indoor present some issues, such as the scalability. The aim of this study is evaluate the scalability and latency of two time based ranging positioning algorithms. In order to reach this purpose a simulation tool implementing the IEEE 802.11 b/g protocol stack and 2-Way TOA and passive TDOA algorithms was built. Thus, a comparison of both algorithms is done for different scenarios. Those scenarios evaluate both techniques under two different mobility models, static grid and Gauss Markov, and two different environments: outdoor and indoor. Results show that Passive TDOA is more scalable than 2-Way TOA in all proposed scenarios.