WiFi-RTT-SLAM: Simultaneously Estimating the Positions of Mobile Devices and WiFi-RTT Access Points

Christian Gentner and Diana Avram

Abstract:	This article aims to explore and extend the research on navigation in indoor environments using smartphones. Using WiFi for indoor positioning is a common approach because WiFi infrastructure is widely deployed. Recently the WiFi IEEE 802.11-2016 standard was released, which includes a fine time measurement (FTM) protocol, more commonly known as WiFi-round-trip-time (WiFi-RTT) protocol, for WiFi ranging. WiFi-RTT enables ranging measurements between a device, i.e. a smartphone, and fixed WiFi-RTT access points (WiFi-RTT-APs). Because the location of WiFi-RTT-APs are typically unknown, this paper presents a novel algorithm which estimates the position of a smartphone together with the location of the WiFi-RTT-APs using a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) method. The derived algorithm is evaluated based on measurements in an indoor environment. We show, that the smartphone and the WiFi-RTT-APs can be localized within meter accuracy, having no prior knowledge about the environment.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 34th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2021) September 20 - 24, 2021 Union Station Hotel St. Louis, Missouri
Pages:	3142 - 3148
Cite this article:	Gentner, Christian, Avram, Diana, "WiFi-RTT-SLAM: Simultaneously Estimating the Positions of Mobile Devices and WiFi-RTT Access Points," Proceedings of the 34th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2021), St. Louis, Missouri, September 2021, pp. 3142-3148. https://doi.org/10.33012/2021.18081
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