Guidelines for the Choice of a Wireless Secure Positioning and Communication System

The interest for indoor positioning and communication systems has been growing lately, as a lot of IoT applications would benefit from accessing devices locations. For cost and simplicity sake, having an all-in-one wireless positioning and communication system is an appealing solution, but the choice of the appropriate technology can be complex. Moreover, as positions should not be corruptible, integrity and authenticity of the data are primordial in location-related applications and different kinds of system-level security approaches are available. Hence, this paper intends to provide guidelines for the choice of a positioning and communication system and its security features, according to a defined set of criteria. Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID and UWB technologies are compared relatively to those criteria. We classified the security system-level approaches into four main types: statistical, sector-based, distance-bounding, and cooperative methods. We discuss the contexts of use and the challenges that will face a developer for each approach. This paper should provide a good insight into the different technologies and security approaches, for a developer looking for an indoor secure positioning and communication solution for a given application.