Experimental analysis of RSSI-based indoor localization with IEEE 802.15.4

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison between some of the most used ranging localization methods based on the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in low-power IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks. In particular, the Trilateration, the Min-Max and the Maximum-Likelihood algorithms have been compared using only a limited number of reference nodes. In order to perform an exhaustive comparison we carried out tests in an indoor environment: dozens of RSSI values for every estimation have been gathered and cleaned from outliers values. Our results show that it is possible to some extent to obtain positioning information from nodes equipped with IEEE 802.15.4 radio modules, given the position and the number of reference nodes.