A toolkit for automatically constructing outdoor radio maps

Abstract

Outdoor location systems based on wireless access point (WAP) signal strength must either know the exact location of the WAPs in order to use a triangulation algorithm, or must construct a radio-map of the signal strengths. While the radio-map technique increases accuracy and can accommodate a wireless network that is not owned by any one entity, conventional methods for constructing a radio-map are labor-intensive and impractical in such environments. We introduce a toolkit for automatically constructing outdoor radio-maps. Our toolkit can easily be carried by delivery personnel and security guards during their normal work duties to obtain signal readings. The scattered data readings are then fed into an interpolation algorithm to construct a more complete grid that can be used as the radio-map.