Localization of Wi-Fi Access Point using smartphone's GPS information

Abstract

Precise localization of Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) is becoming increasingly important with the rise of diverse location-based services based on smartphone. In this article, we propose a new method for precise Wi-Fi AP localization using GPS information of smartphone. The idea is that the possible area of Wi-Fi AP location, called AP_Area, is first determined by measuring GPS information and the Received Signal Strength (RSS) of smartphones from Wi-Fi AP. As the number of measurement points from users' smartphones increases, the AP_Area can be successively narrowed down to the actual AP location. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can detect the Wi-Fi AP localization within 5 m (probability over than 80%).