Implementing positioning services over an ubiquitous infrastructure*

D. Cotroneo(1), F. Cornevilli(2), M. Ficco(2), V. Vecchio(2), S. Russo(1)

(1) Università di Napoli Federico II
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Via Claudio, 21 - 80125 Naples, ITALY
(2) C.I.N.I. – Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per l’Informatica
Via Diocleziano 328 - 80124 Naples, ITALY
{cotroneo, v.vecchio, stefano.russo}@unina.it
{mficco,fcornevilli}@napoli.consorzio-cini.it

Abstract its latitude, longitude and altitude thanks to

Ubiquitous computing is rapidly emerging as
building framework for deploying mobile and context-
aware applications. This paper focuses on a new
approach, and the resulting architecture, for
implementing positioning services over ubiquitous
infrastructures. Our driving idea is to estimate zones
where devices are operating using a power level based
positioning approach. We experiment such an
approach over a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi infrastructure.
The proposed architecture is independent from the
devices used and from the wireless infrastructure
(Bluetooth, and WiFi).
1. Introduction
Ubiquitous computing is rapidly emerging as
building framework for deploying mobile and context-
aware applications, i.e. applications which aim at
making computing and communication transparent to
users, making computers more aware of the facilities
and objects in their surroundings, giving the right
information at the right moment to users.
Ubiquitous computing is referred in literature as
computing environments which encompass a vast
number of embedded, wearable, and handhelds devices
which communicate transparently to provide different
services to the user [1]. These devices mostly use low
power and short-range wireless communication
capability. Location awareness capability of such
systems represents an important issues to be addressed.
The word positioning is normally used to express
the physical position of an object in a predetermined
space. The position of an airplane in the sky is given by
sophisticated electronic measurements. The position of
a car on land can be given thanks to modern GPS
technology, which is able to locate a vehicle with an
accuracy of few meters. Not all life situations though,
require the maximum achievable accuracy. There are
emerging ubiquitous applications which provide
different kind of services depending on the building
zone which devices reside. For such applications it is
imoprtant to know in which room the mobile device is
and not the x,y,z coordinates in the space. For example,
it could be useful to know the position of a doctor
moving around a hospital with a precision of a single
room, or the position of a man moving around a
museum with the precision of an exhibition hall, in
other words to know the zone in which the user is
moving; hence, the most appropriate word we could
use is “zoning”. In our scenario we envisage the
possibility to access the network through more than one
wireless technology. Therefore a PDA, laptop or
smartphone may connect using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth
technology. These devices are provided with a specific
content, which is tailored to the location area where
they are operating. It is worth mentioning that the
adopted scenario is a very interesting one, in that it
encompasses automotive, domotic, hospital, and smart
tour applications. This paper focuses on a new schema
for implementing zoning service over ubiquitous
infrastructures.
A great deal of research studies has been conducted
on introducing location aware capabilities in
distributed applications over ubiquitous infrastructures.
In particular, in [2] a RF-based wireless LANs system
is used for locating and tracking user inside buildings,
whereas in [3] a solution for local positioning using

*
This work has been partially supported by the Italian Ministry for Education, University, and Research (MIUR) in the
framework of the FIRB Project "Middleware for advanced services over large-scale, wired-wireless distributed systems (WEB-
MINDS).
Bluetooth technology is presented. In [4] an ultrasonic
positioning system for calculating location of the nodes
is proposed; such a proposal is based on hop-by-hop
locating mechanism, in which the mobile nodes can
determine their position even if it cannot receive
ultrasound from reference nodes directly. An
architecture for location aware applications, where
positioning source such as GPS, WaveLAN and
Bluetooth devices can be seamlessly interchanged or
even combined to archive a more accurate positioning
service is proposed in [5]. There are several
approaches, specifically proposed for ad-hoc
networks, namely APS[7], AhLOS[8], and Self
Positioning Algorithm[9], which proposed novel
positioning algorithms which do not need in advance
setting of infrastructure, but require a group of nodes in
the ad hoc network to have self positioning capability.
As stated in [6], GPS technology is typically used for
positioning objects in outdoor environments, and it is
not suitable for indoor use.
All the mentioned works adopt a triangle-based
approach to address positioning issues, except for [4,7]
(but smart sensors are required). We claim that using
such an approach in the adopted scenario is inadequate
for the following reasons:
- The triangle-based approach is not robust to
interference of similar frequencies and to wall presence
in the building. In order to address such an issues, more
devices are needed, thus increasing the cost of the
ubiquitous infrastructure or, alternatively, a more
complex estimation model is adopted, as illustrated in
[3,7,9].
- The triangle-based approach suffers of a
measurement error which is linearly dependent on the


received signal strength [3], i.e. it is not tolerant to
measurement errors.
A new approach to determine position is thus
needed. We propose a new architecture which
considers each zone of the environment as a bubble.
Our idea is to estimate zones with a power level based
positioning approach. We experiment such an approach
over a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi infrastructure. The
proposed architecture is independent from the devices
used and from the wireless infrastructure (Bluetooth,
and Wi-Fi).
The rest of the paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 presents our approach for providing zoning
services. Section 3 describes the architecture we
propose. Section 4 presents implementation issues in
the context of a case study, which involves a small
museum. Section 5 presents preliminary experimental
results, while Section 5 concludes the paper with
indications on current and future work.
2. The proposed approach
In this paper we propose a “zoning” approach where
identifying the position of a mobile device within an
indoor office is equivalent to discovering in which
room the mobile device resides.
In this scenario, we consider each room of the
building as a bubble of radius r, named “zone”. Each
bubble is Bluetooth or Wi-Fi network sensors covered.
We assume the presence of one sensor for each zone
and a topology map of the considered building. Such a
map represents all the zones where devices can operate.
In order to determine in which zone the mobile
device is operating, we adopt a solution based on
received Signal Strength. The received Signal Strength
is the measurement in dBm of the received power
levels of the sensor signal. Roughly speaking, the
mobile device acquires information about the Signal
Strength from sensors, residing in the neighbour rooms.
Such information is then used to calculate, by means of
an appropriate model, the distance from each network
sensor. It is thus possible to locate the room in which
the mobile device operates.
The presence of one network sensor in each zone,
reduces the effects of wall presence [2] and the
measurement errors that often characterize the triangle-
based positioning approach. In fact, with such an
approach the presence of thick walls and strong
interference can require sophisticated sensor devices
and/or more than three access points to improve
accuracy[4,7]. This can increase the cost of positioning
infrastructures. The proposed architecture, instead,
requires cheaper devices (e.g. Bluetooth dongles,
Bluetooth printers and modules) or any wireless fixed
devices already present in the building. Furthermore,
the presence of thick wall supports our approach
reducing radio frequency interferences.
Moreover, the zoning approach is more tolerant to
errors, assuming that we are not interested in the exact
position of a mobile device, and does not required
heavy computational activities.
3. Overall Architecture
Figure 1 shows the conceptual model of the
proposed architecture. The lowest layer is the Network
Layer, which consists of two sub-layers. The first one
is the Connectivity Layer, which is in charge of finding
and connecting in range Bluetooth (BT) and Wi-Fi
devices. A neighbour device is any stationary device,
which can be considered as a network sensor, such as
Bluetooth printers, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi access points,
Bluetooth adaptors, etc. These sensors are placed
within the radio range of a mobile device. The second
sub-layer is the SS_Measurement Layer used to read
received Signal Strength (SS).
User Layer
Positioning Layer
RX Power Layer
Network Layer
SS Measurement Layer
Connectivity Layer
Bluetooth Wi-Fi
Figure 1. Wi-Fi/Bluetooth architecture
The RX_Power Layer and Zoning Layers provide
abstraction from the positioning devices used. Mobile
devices use a positioning method based on received
(RX) power levels to determine its own position, which
is calculated thanks to the measured strengths of
received signals. The RX power levels are used to
measure distance between transmitter and receiver. The
RX_Power Layer converts the measured SS to RX
power levels. The Zoning Layer is responsible to
convert the RX power levels into a position
information.
The top level is the User Layer. In this layer the
position estimation is provided to the user application.
4. Implementation Issues
4.1 Experimental Testbed
A test bed was established on the ITEM laboratories of
the C.I.N.I. building. The layout of these labs is shown
in figure 2. It has dimensions of 15m by 40m with
about 6 different rooms, including computer labs,
offices, and the storeroom. As shown in the figure,
sensors are placed in the middle of each room, which is
covered by one or more bubbles. Square rooms are the
most simple to study, since they will have only one
radius. On the other hand rectangular shaped zones
(and non square rooms in general) must have more than
one radius and therefore are covered by more than one
bubble. As for the hardware platforms, we used a
Compaq iPAQ 3970 mobile device with a Bluetooth
and 802.11 modules. The operating system is Linux
Familiar 0.7.0 on which we have developed the
proposed architecture. The wireless sensors are
stationary and are configured to accept connections
from mobile devices. In our scenario the sensors used
were an ANYCOM Bluetooth dongle, an ANYCOM
Bluetooth Printer Module and an Orinoco Access Point
802.11b.
Figure 2. Testbed topology
4.2 Case Study Application
As far as the application is concerned, we implemented
a smart tour applications for touristic visit to a
museum. There is a server host, deployed over the
wired infrastructures, which sends to the clients (PDAs)
an audio description of the artistic items of the room
where they are residing.
4.3 Implementation
The Network Layer has been developed using Bluez
Stack [11] for Bluetooth module and Wireless Tools
for Linux [12] for WLAN module. This layer is in
charge of discovering and creating connections with
neighboring sensors. As for the communication APIs
we used facilities provided by Bluez stack and Wireless
Tools. Over Bluetooth, the Connecting Layer
establishes an Asynchronous Connection Link (ACL)
creating a piconet, in which the mobile devices are
masters and the sensors are slaves. The Bluetooth
devices measure RX power levels indirectly by using
Received SS Indication (RSSI). The SS_Measurement
Layer reads the RSSI value for each established link.
RSSI is implemented in the Bluetooth module and can
be read through functionalities of the HCI driver [13].
The RX_Power layer converts the RSSI values read by
Connectivity Layer into RX power levels. RSSI is
typically an 8-bit integer value, and its measurement
unit is in dB in comparison to the optimal RX power
range, namely Golden Receive Power Range (GRPR).
An RSSI value greater then zero indicates the RX
power level is greater than GRPR. A negative RSSI
value means RX power level is lower than GRPR. If an
RSSI value is equal to zero, RX power level is inside
GRPR. GRPR is limited by upper and lower thresholds.
An RSSI value can be converted to RX power level
only if upper and lower threshold levels are known.
Threshold levels are different for each Bluetooth
device [13]. An example of the conversion of RSSI to
RX power levels of the ANYCOM Bluetooth dongle is
represented in figure 3.

Figure 4. Moving from Z4 to Z3

HCI_Read_RSSI

Position History Residing Zone

d1 > r3 decreasing Z4
d2 < r4 increasing
d1 < r3 decreasing Z3
Received Power Level d2 > r4 increasing
d1 > r3 decreasing Z4
Figure 3. RSSI to RX power level conversion of the
d2 > r4 increasing Probably Z3
ANYCOM Bluetooth dongle.
Table 1 Moving from Z4 to Z3
A similar approach has been adopted for W-LANs,
using facilities provided by Wireless Tools for 2) The mobile device is moving from Zone 3 (square
Linux[12]. RX power levels conversions into a position room) to Zone 4 (non-square room). In this case, the
depends on the tested neighboring sensors. The zone can be discovered by analysing the SS and
distance from sensors is calculated following the comparing the position with the second radius (r4’’) of
approach given in [14], which estimate the function: the adjacent node (Z4) (see fig. 5 and table 2).
P(d) = P(d0) – n*10*log(d/d0) (F1)
Where P(d) is the RX power level at distance d, d0 is a
reference distance. P(d0) is the RX Power Level at
distance d0. The variable n describes how the RX
Power Level decreases with the distance. The function
F1, can be reworked as follows:
d = 10 ((P(d0) –P(d))/10*n) (F2)
Figure 5. Moving from Z3 to Z4
Where d is the distance from the neighbouring sensor
and d0 is the reference distance (1 m). Position History Residing Zone
d1 < r3 increasing Z3
During the initial off-line calibrating phase, to each d2 > r4 decreasing
sensor will be associate a fixed zone to cover. Each d1 > r3 increasing Z4
sensor knows the adjacent node, being aware of the d2 < r4’’ decreasing
environment topology (see fig.2). Table 2. Moving from Z3 to Z4
During our trials, we considered two alternatives: The Zoning Layer uses two tables to determine the
1) The mobile device is moving from Zone 4 (non- position of a moving device. The first table describes
square room) to Zone 3 (square room). Such a situation zones in the environment. Each zone is characterized
is shown in figure 4. The distance d1 is greater than by a smaller radius (R), the MAC address and the kind
radius r3, therefore the device is supposed to be still in of sensor used, which can be ‘W’ for WaveLAN and
Zone 4; the same occurs if the radius r4 is greater than ‘B’ for Bluetooth.
the distance d2. To increase the robustness, the system
keeps track of the history of the moving device, as Zone R MAC Type
… … .. ..
shown in table 1.
Z3 r3 MAC3 B
Z4 r4 ’ MAC4 W
… .. .. …
Table 3. Characteristics of the zones

The second table contains information about the

bordering zones (BZ) and the correspondent radius
used (R).

Zone BZ1 R BZ1..
… … ... ...
Z3 Z4 r4’’ Nul
Z4 Z3 r3 Z1
… … … …
Table 4. Characteristics of the neighbouring zones
RX_Power Layer and Connectivity Layer are
developed in J2ME, using a Java package developed
by Rococo Inc. and a C library developed by JBlueZ
[11]. The C library is used to interface J2ME API to
HCI Bluetooth layer thanks to a Java Native Interface
(JNI).
5. Preliminary Results
During start up phase mobile devices acquire sensors
topology and sensor characteristics, thanks to he
information enclosed in the tables above described.
During our preliminary tests we had appealing system
behaviours, where the measured signals correspond to
the ones expected. In the figure below we show an
example of the RX power levels of a mobile device
moving from Zone 4 to Zone 3, in relation to its
position.
RX POWER LEVELS (dBm)
Zone 3 Zone 4
ß Workshop on Software for Future Embedded Systems
r3 (6 m)
POSITION (m)
Figure 6. Signal strength transition from Z3 to Z4
In order to consider interference issues between
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radio frequencies, we considered
the β range as an indeterminate zone. With our
approach, such zones does not influence the
application behaviour. Indeed, if the device is coming
from Z3, it is assumed remaining in Z3 in the β range.
Otherwise, if the device is coming from Z4, it is
assumed remaining in Z4 in the β range.
6. Conclusions and Future Work
This paper proposed a new approach and the resulting
architecture for implementing positioning services over
ubiquitous infrastructures. Our driving idea was to
estimate building zones with a power level based
positioning approach. The proposed architecture is
independent from the devices used and from the
wireless infrastructure. Future work will address the
Rn BZ1 following: i) investigate strategies aiming at RSSI noise
… …
Nul Nul
reduction; ii) exporting APIs in the Java language,
r1 Nul making them compliant with the JSR-179
... … specifications [10]; iii) leveraging the robustness of the
provided positioning services. As for the latter, a
problem may arise if a position error has occurred
under particular topology configurations, as stated in
section 4. Indeed, more efficient strategies aiming to
tolerate such kind of errors are under development.
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