Abstract:
Many organizations, including Panduit, currently utilize various types of wireless sensors for many applications such as temperature and pressure measurements throughout an environment. It can be advantageous to know the physical location of these wireless sensors. Conventional location determination systems, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), cannot be used in certain environments and a different solution is needed. In some cases, sensor locations can be manually assigned and fixed. However, for deploying a great number of sensors, it would be easier to have this location be determined automatically and allow the sensors to be moved through a closed environment. Our research focuses on designing a location determination system using IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi to determine the location of a sensor with an accuracy of 1 meter or less in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space.

Our initial research will focus on five main properties:

1. A client should be able to be placed, turned on, and location determined automatically.
2. The sensors should be modified as little as possible. The infrastructure itself should do all of the work.
3. All governmental regulations for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands must be followed.
4. The system should be able to identify the location of a new client or the location of a moved client as soon as possible.
5. The system should have an accuracy within 1 meter.