Abstract
Seamless location awareness is considered a cornerstone in the successful deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT). Support for IoT devices in indoor positioning platforms and, vice versa, availability of indoor positioning functions in IoT platforms, are however still in their early stages, posing a significant challenge in the study and research of the interaction of indoor positioning and IoT. This paper proposes a new indoor positioning platform, called ThingsLocate, that fills this gap by building upon the popular and flexible ThingSpeak cloud service for IoT, leveraging its data input and data processing capabilities and, most importantly, its native support for cloud execution of Matlab code. ThingsLocate provides a flexible, user-friendly WiFi fingerprinting indoor positioning service for IoT devices, based on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) information. The key components of ThingsLocate are introduced and described: RSSI channels used by IoT devices to provide WiFi RSSI data, an Analysis app estimating the position of the device, and a Location channel to publish such estimate. A proof-of-concept implementation of ThingsLocate is then introduced, and used to show the possibilities offered by the platform in the context of graduate studies and academic research on indoor positioning for IoT. Results of an experiment enabled by ThingsLocate with limited setup and no coding effort are presented, focusing on the impact of using different devices and different positioning algorithms on positioning accuracy.
Highlights
Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming one of the largest markets for wireless telecommunications: exact figures depend on the definition of IoT, analysts estimated a total value market of about 600 billion dollars back in 2015, expected to reach 700–800 billion dollars by 2023 [1,2], with over 40 billion devices connected worldwide [3]
Ease of use and ease of deployment—IoT is expected to pervade and integrate seamlessly in both consumer and industrial applications. This goal can only be achieved if IoT devices and systems are easy to deploy and setup, not requiring extensive calibration phases and/or complex setup procedures; Hardware limitations—IoT devices range from very simple devices, with a single wireless interface and minimal computing/processing power, to powerful processing stations equipped with multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and accessory sensors; Cloud computing—IoT is inherently relying on Internet connectivity and on the availability of processing power in the cloud, allowing simple IoT devices to operate by just collecting and transferring data, without local processing
This paper introduced ThingsLocate, a novel platform for WiFi-based indoor positioning of Internet of Things devices built upon the ThingSpeak IoT cloud platform
Summary
Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming one of the largest markets for wireless telecommunications: exact figures depend on the definition of IoT, analysts estimated a total value market of about 600 billion dollars back in 2015, expected to reach 700–800 billion dollars by 2023 [1,2], with over 40 billion devices connected worldwide [3]. Ease of use and ease of deployment—IoT is expected to pervade and integrate seamlessly in both consumer and industrial applications This goal can only be achieved if IoT devices and systems are easy to deploy and setup, not requiring extensive calibration phases and/or complex setup procedures; Hardware limitations—IoT devices range from very simple devices, with a single wireless interface and minimal computing/processing power, to powerful processing stations equipped with multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and accessory sensors; Cloud computing—IoT is inherently relying on Internet connectivity and on the availability of processing power in the cloud, allowing simple IoT devices to operate by just collecting and transferring data, without local processing.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
