Efficient design of indoor positioning systems based on optimization model

In recent years, positioning systems for indoor areas using the existing wireless local area network infrastructure have become very popular and attractive. However, most systems only focus on the network deployment for positioning but overlook that the original purpose of these WLAN infrastructures is providing the required connectivity. Furthermore, experimental results related to such positioning systems have been presented while there is a lack of good analytical models that can be used as a framework for designing and deploying the positioning systems. In this paper, we propose an innovative approach where WLAN planning and positioning error reduction are modeled as an optimization problem and tackled together during the WLAN planning process. A Mono-objective algorithm called Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) is implemented and the simulations demonstrate that this algorithm is highly efficient in solving the indoor positioning optimization problem.