Positioning Error vs. Signal Distribution: An Analysis Towards Lower Error Bound in WLAN Fingerprint Based Indoor Localization

Multi-path fading, environmental shadowing and channel interference always result in the significant temporal and spatial variations of Received Signal Strength (RSS), and eventually lead to the low accuracy in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) fingerprint based indoor localization. Motivated by this, we focus on deriving out the positioning error bound which can be applied to characterize the theoretical relationship between the positioning errors and signal distributions by using Fisher Information Matrix (FIM). Furthermore, the positioning error bound is recognized as an effective criterion of designing a more beneficial WLAN deployment with higher positioning accuracy. Extensive simulations are conducted in a regular Lineof-sight (LOS) environment as well as in a complex irregular Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environment.