Floor estimation algorithm for wireless indoor multi-story positioning systems

Wireless indoor positioning system has become one of important components in context-aware applications over the years. However, there are still some unsolved problems such as floor determination of mobile target in multi-story buildings. Therefore, this paper presents a simple floor estimation algorithm, which can accurately determine the mobile target's floor. The proposed algorithm is based on the use of Received Signal Strength (RSS) obtained from wireless interface of sensor node in IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the nearest floor and the group variance algorithms found in the literature using a real implementation of IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor network in our facility. The experimental results showed that our proposed floor estimation algorithm provided the highest floor accuracy with the floor estimation precision of more than 90%.