Radio-based indoor localization using the eZ430-Chronos platform

The radio-based indoor localization and tracking of people and materials is an ongoing research issue. A typical localization system uses the received signal strength (RSS) values of a line of reference nodes (RNs) to determine the position of a radio transmitter with unknown position. The so called blind node (BN) should use low-power components for a long battery life and should also be weight-optimized for the localization and tracking of people. Therefore, we investigate the use of the eZ430 radio platform which uses a system-on-chip design containing a low-power microcontroller part and an 868 MHz radio transceiver. The device comes in a sports watch case and also contains sensors for air pressure and acceleration measurements. The last one is used to increase the accuracy of the localization by a three-dimensional motion detection framework. Experimental results for a localization in an office building are used to evaluate the performance, especially the influence of the new motion detection framework.