Ranging estimation error in WiFi devices running IEEE 802.11mc

Abstract

Indoor positioning is still considered an open issue, especially when general-purpose communication networks are used to observe the metrics for positioning. IEEE 802.11mc aims at providing positioning capabilities to Wi-Fi networks. Google recently developed a feature aimed at making easy to run the standard in any Android device; however, only few access points (APs) officially support and advertise it. It is proven, though, that a bunch of APs are able to attend the location requests from 802.11mc devices despite not announcing their positioning capabilities. An application is proposed here that effectively gathers a list of all the APs that may collaborate in the indoor positioning process. This work is aimed at studying the performance of the location error in a real scenario where Android Wi-Fi devices run the IEEE 802.11mc positioning facility. The results demonstrate that, although errors are smaller than 2 meters as promised, the performance greatly depends on the AP and the frequency band used.