Implementation of a 3D Indoor Positioning System Using MLP-based Distance Estimation for IoT Applications

Abstract

Wireless sensor network (WSN) indoor location systems are based on effective distance estimation between the target node and anchors to find the node's precise location. Almost all low-cost wireless devices use the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) metric for estimating distance. This study aims to minimise the error in the estimated distance between the anchor nodes and the target node by proposing a model based on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for determining the distance using the RSSI. The proposed model was used to apply 3D indoor localisation. ANN is implemented in an Esp32 embedded system to make it compatible with WSN and IoT applications by using the TinyML approach for designing and implementing an efficient base station. The results show that the time required for the indoor localisation process does not exceed 40 ms, which is a very promising result for real-time localisation applications.