An Indoor Localization Mechanism Based on RFID and IR Data in Ambient Intelligent Environments

Smart spaces provide users with seamless, invisible and proactive services adapted to their preferences and needs. Smart buildings comprise a key part of smart spaces, where the provided services, such as climate and lighting control or security, can be offered intelligently if one considers the static and dynamical status of the building and the location of residents. This work is focused on providing an autonomous system capable of collecting a wide range of monitoring information to ensure a comfortable atmosphere in a building and assist residents with smart automation. Location plays an important role in many context-aware applications and it is used in this work in the form of an adaptive localization mechanism based on RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) and IR (Infra-Red) to implement a tracking system based on a Radial Basis Function Network and a Particle Filter, which is capable of providing location user with a low error. A theoretical study about models of transmission power losses in indoor environments has also been tackled, hence the number and position of sensors and the accuracy of measurements are optimized. A real scenario that exploits the capabilities of the system is described and used to gather results that demonstrate how this localization mechanism enhances the experience of users in smart buildings through a set of services.