Wi-Fi Positioning

Does Wi-Fi have the capability to provide accurate indoor positioning?

About Wi-Fi Positioning Technology

Wi-Fi is commonly used for the transmission of data and is a great alternative to be used indoors when GPS capabilities are limited.

Each Wi-Fi access point relays data to allow users to access the internet. Wi-Fi positioning can take advantage of the signals emitted from Wi-Fi routers to gain some insights into the users location.

How Wi-Fi Positioning Works?

When a Wi-Fi router sends a wireless signal, Wi-Fi receivers (e.g., smartphones) can accept those signals. Each signal contains some metadata which can be processed and used to determine the users’ location. Wi-Fi Metadata:

MAC address (unique ID for the router)
RSS (Received Signal Strength)

The MAC address is unique for each Wi-Fi router and the RSS provides a rough measurement of how far away the device is. Intuitively, a strong RSS would show that the user is close to that Wi-Fi router and a weak RSS would indicate that the user is far from the Wi-Fi router.

Wi-Fi Trilateration and Wi-Fi Fingerprinting

There are two main ways Wi-Fi MAC address and RSS can be used for positioning. The first is Wi-Fi trilateration and the second is Wi-Fi fingerprinting.

Wi-Fi trilateration requires knowledge of the location of each Wi-Fi router. Then, based on the RSS, it estimates a distance between the user and each visible Wi-Fi router and calculates its position based on those distances.

Wi-Fi fingerprinting does not need to know the locations of the Wi-Fi routers but instead creates a large fingerprint map of what the RSS of each MAC address looks like at various locations and then in real-time compares the measured RSS to the fingerprint map to determine the users position.

Challenges with Wi-Fi Positioning

While Wi-Fi is one of the most popular technologies ever, there are still many challenges users face when using it for indoor positioning.

Challenges with the technology:

iOS devices have restricted access to scan for Wi-Fi
Android data through the Wi-Fi network can be limited for scanning
Accuracy alone is not sufficient for indoor positioning (10-15 meters)
Wi-Fi signals propagate through various walls and obstacles leading to high signal variance and ambiguity which makes it difficult to extract distance

Download our Technology Landscapes whitepaper to learn about how Mapsted outperforms pre-existing technology.

Download Whitepaper

Mapsted’s IPS Eliminates The Need For External Hardware.

All-in-one IPS
The technical limitations of other indoor navigation technologies can't deliver what Mapsted's patented core technology does - a highly accurate and cost- effective stand-alone indoor positioning system.
Eliminate extra costs
Other indoor positioning systems require the use of expensive external hardware and costly maintenance.
No external hardware
Instead of relying on external hardware for location- based needs, Mapsted technology pulls from a huge variety of data sources to create a powerful and accurate indoor positioning system.

Learn More